1 ¶ And the fifth angel sounded,
and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key
of the bottomless pit.
Yet, another star falls from heaven.
This star clearly represents a spiritual creature which points to stars
previously referring to something other than physical entities. Remember that
stars are angels in Revelation 1:20. This star is given a key to the bottomless pit. I believe that the bottomless pit is Hell itself.
What is a pit without a bottom? It
is a sphere, like the center of the earth.
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was
three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be
three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Deuteronomy 32:22 For a fire is
kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume
the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
Psalm 86:13 For great is thy
mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.
Revelation 20:3 And cast him
into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he
should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be
fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Isaiah 14:15 Yet thou shalt be
brought down to hell, to the sides of the 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 them that
they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither
any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in 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 striketh 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 unto 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, as it were breastplates of iron; and the
sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to
battle. 10 And they had tails like unto
scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men
five months. 11 And they had a king over
them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue
is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. 12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two
woes more hereafter.
Smoke from this pit comes up so
thick that the sun is darkened even more by it. Locusts come through the smoke
that have the power to sting like a scorpion. They are not to hurt anything
other than people. They aren’t to kill them but just make them suffer for five
months. Men wanted to die, the suffering was so horrible, but could not.
The description of the locusts
shows that they are not ordinary locusts but creatures with faces like men,
long hair, and lion’s fangs, wearing breastplates of iron, with wings that
sounded like chariots and horses coming to battle. You can imagine the great
noise of hooves and wheels this would create. The king over them when they
appear, the angel of the bottomless pit, is named Abaddon in Hebrew and
Apollyon in Greek.
Remember how Satan is referred to
as a king over all the children of pride
when God likens a dragon, the Biblical word for our modern dinosaur, to him in
description?
Job 41:34 He beholdeth all high
things: he is a king over all the children of pride.
Satan is the prince of the power
of the air, the prince of this world, and the god of this world.
Ephesians 2:2 Wherein in time
past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience:
John 12:31 Now is the judgment
of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
2Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god
of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them.
Paul warned that our warfare is
against spiritual powers not with earthly rulers.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against
the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places.
Both the names Abaddon and Apollyon mean destruction and destroyer, according to Strong’s
dictionary. Paul referred to the Hebrews in the Exodus.
1Corinthians 10:10 Neither
murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Remember who killed the firstborn
of the Egyptians.
Exodus 12:23 For the LORD will
pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the
lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will
not suffer the destroyer to come in
unto your houses to smite you.
John is seeing the spiritual world
in a way that we cannot. The people suffering cannot see what is causing their
suffering for real. This gives us a hint of what may be going on behind much
suffering today. There is a physical cause for disease backed by a spiritual
cause, perhaps. It is interesting to think about in light of modern materialism
that only acknowledges the physical.
13 ¶ And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a
voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the
trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
15 And the four angels were loosed,
which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to
slay the third part of men. 16 And the
number of the army of the horsemen were 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, having 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 do hurt. 20
And the rest of the men which 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 neither
can see, nor hear, nor walk: 21 Neither
repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their
fornication, nor of their thefts.
There are now said to be four
angels bound in the Euphrates. When they are loosed they will kill a third part
of mankind. This is effected by an army of, again, strictly spiritual or
visible, a question we need to consider, creatures numbering two hundred
million, although this has typically been applied to the invasion by the kings of the east in preparation for
Armageddon, mentioned later. The suffering caused by these creatures that,
perhaps, unleashes an invasion represented in spiritual terms is referred to as
these plagues, so we know they are
spiritual forces behind physical destruction. The destruction does not make
mankind repentant. They still worships their idols and do not repent of their
murders, their sorceries, their fornication, or their thefts. So we have five
things here of which mankind is guilty.
Idolatry literally here referring
to worshipping actual physical idols might include in our modern understanding
the veneration of religious statues or icons. Murder, we know, is to kill
innocent persons who have not harmed or are not harming you.
Psalm 10:8 He sitteth in the
lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the
innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
Jesus defined the proscription
against killing in Exodus 20:13 by His statement in Matthew 19:18.
Matthew 19:18 He saith unto him,
Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery,
Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
Sorceries, in Revelation only, is
a word that comes from the root for our modern word pharmacy. In other places it is translated from a word for magical arts. It is important to
understand the use of hallucinogens in ancient rites of magic. A study of
ancient Central America is very helpful in understanding how such drugs were
used in the practice of magic.(16) A
study of the use of drugs in ancient magic rites will expand our understanding
of the use of pharmacological drugs in the end time, perhaps as modern medicine
uses them today, to control behavior and make people more compliant. The Soviet
Union was known for this as is America where many children are drugged for
being considered hyperactive, a nuisance. I look for the use of drugs for
control to expand greatly as history moves forward.
Fornication is any sexual activity
outside of a marriage between a man and a woman and it is important not to
confuse a government sanctioned license with an actual Christian marriage. You
are not married before God just because you bowed to the state’s authority to
get a license if there is no commitment before God in a covenantal relationship
with your wife or husband for life. Fornication is translated from the word
from which we get pornography, porneia. It
is linked with lasciviousness, uncleanness, and adultery.
Galatians 5:19 Now the works of
the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Sexual immorality; homosexual and
heterosexual temple prostitutes, and orgies as a part of worship, were an
integral part of ancient religion so fornication is linked to idolatry.
Exodus 32:5 And when Aaron saw
it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To
morrow is a feast to the LORD. 6 And
they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought
peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to
play…25 And when Moses saw that the
people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their
enemies:)
1Corinthians 10:7 Neither be ye
idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat
and drink, and rose up to play.
This is the logical reason that
the Corinthian church insisted on their women having long hair, to distinguish
them from the short haired temple prostitutes in nearby Acro-Corinth’s Temple
to Aphrodite. Read 1Corinthians 11:1-16. Aphrodite was the Greek version of
Astarte and Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of prostitutes and liberty, who came
down to us through the ages and stands in New York’s harbor as a beacon to the
world. There are references to them thoughout the Old Testament.
Why is the word theft included in this list? The great
city, Babylon, is very wealthy, as we will see later. Theft, stealing other
people’s material possessions, can also include stealing their labor.
James 5:4 Behold, the hire of
the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by
fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the
ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
This also applied under the Law
given to Moses.
Leviticus 19:13 Thou shalt not
defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall
not abide with thee all night until the morning.
I imagine you didn’t think you
were being robbed by having your pay held back for a week, two weeks, or a
month did you? Of course, our traditional use of the word, theft, is outright stealing.
Exodus 22:1 ¶ If a man shall
steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen
for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. 2
If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall
no blood be shed for him. 3 If the sun
be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full
restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. 4 If the theft be certainly found in his hand
alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double.
Consider how powerful men in the
past have preyed on the poor from the ancient world through the feudalism of
medieval times, to the early days of capitalism’s abuse of the working poor,
and into socialism where capitalists are just given government authority and
power to back them up and the powerful men are also government, as in Red China
today. God has always remarked heavily against the oppression of the poor, not
the sluggard or slothful, but the working poor, as any eyes-open reading of
Proverbs will show.
(16) Albert Hoffman, “Teonanácatl and Ololiuqui, two ancient magic drugs of Mexico,” Bulletin
on Narcotics, Issue 1, 1971; 3-14 quoted on The Vaults of Erowid, https://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/references/other/1971_hofmann_bulletin-narcotics.shtml. (accessed 12.30.2015).
A wicked
world system is being judged.
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