Revelation 11 (The Seventh Trumpet)

 Revelation 11 (The Seventh Trumpet)

This chapter starts with a continuation of the interlude between the 6th and 7th trumpet announcement.  John had been told to take the message of the little book into his very bowels which contained the blessed hope of the righteous and the bitter prophecies of the impending judgment to be spoken of against the world of the unrighteous.  The seventh trumpet will sound in this chapter heralding the final judgment of the Roman Empire.  This event will conclude the opening of the seventh seal of the book only Jesus could unlock and reveal. 

In looking at all the different characters illustrated in chapter 11, it is helpful to remember who the real characters are in the grand picture.  Just like with the locusts in chapter 9 we need to focus on the characteristics more than the characters, the activities more than the actors and keep in mind that this whole thing is written about who is going to overcome and who is going to fall.  On one side we have the bad guys ruled over by Satan and on the other side we have the good guys ruled over by God.  The good and the bad are at war with each other and there’s really no one else represented in these visions.  

The righteous are God, Jesus and various angels. The good institution is the church and the good individuals are the faithful Christians.  The bad guys, the unrighteous, are Satan and his followers. The evil institution is the Roman Empire and the evil individuals are its citizens which are unbelievers.  The activities are always good vs evil and they are in always in conflict.  The weapons used by each side are consistent with their natures.  The evil use whatever earthly weapon there is to wield while the good use only spiritual weapons such as the word of God, goodness, kindness, compassion and love.  The evil hate the good and they are trying to destroy them with whatever means they can contrive.  The good love the evil and they are trying to save them armed with the spiritual weapons of righteousness.  From the outside looking in, it looks like a one sided battle in favor of the evil.  But on the inside looking out it is a one sided battle in favor of the righteous because on their side, they have the creator, the God of the universe (Romans 8:31).  When looking at these visions, one can identify which characters, whether good or evil, are in view and insert them into the proper place, and go a long way toward understanding these visions. 

Revelation 11:1
“And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and one said, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.”
Earlier when asked who would be able to stand against the judgment of God, we learned that God’s divine retribution would be held back until all His faithful servants had been sealed in their foreheads (Revelation 7).  The time is approaching for the sounding of the seventh trumpet and John is told to measure the temple of God.  The temple of God here is representative of the church which is the collection of the redeemed, illustrated here by “them that worship therein“.  The alter is the one beneath which the souls of the slain cried out for justice in Revelation 6:9-10.  The entire sum of the saved is in view here and John has been told to measure them.  He is not measuring objects, rather he is taking the measure of the people represented by the objects in the vision.  With the final judgment in sight, John has been instructed to see for himself how many of the souls had been sealed. 

Revelation 11:2
“And the court which is without the temple leave without, and measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.”
The temple in verse one was representative of the church, therefore those who are not within the temple are not in the church and they are not to be included with the number of the redeemed in any way.  The church is referred to in the NT epistles as the “temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16).  There is a contrast drawn here between those who are saved in the temple and those who are not saved being outside the temple. 

The area outside the temple is populated by the nations of the earth and they persecuted the church and treaded it under foot for forty two months.  This period of time is 3 1/2 years as is also the ‘thousand two hundred and threescore days” in the following verse.  The number 3 1/2 is half of 7 which symbolizes the perfection of God on earth.  The number 3 1/2 symbolizes that which is incomplete therefore the nations of the earth were not allowed to trample the church underfoot until it was destroyed. 

Revelation 11:3
“And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.”
Keeping in mind who the good characters are and what they are doing we can know that these two witnesses represent the church which is prophesying for the period of time allowed for the nations of the earth to trample them underfoot.   These two witnesses compared with the ones sent out by Jesus in pairs (Luke 10:1) are the living saints on earth of the group of those represented as the “temple of God“.  While the saints on earth are being persecuted, they are teaching, preaching and trying to reach the lost.  They were trying to save the very ones that were trying to kill them. 

Revelation 11:4
“These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks, standing before the Lord of the earth.”
This is an explanation of who the two witnesses were.  The number two represented strength and confirmation in the minds of the 1st century Christians.  The two witnesses in verse 11 are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks.  Their characteristics were the bearers of food and of the light of righteousness standing before the Lord of the earth.  These are the living saints of God on earth carrying out the duties of carrying the gospel message to the lost. 

The Lord of the earth they are standing before is interesting.  Is this the evil influences of Satan they are pictured as, standing in opposition to face to face?  Or is this God they are standing before, pictured as standing together in opposition to the influences of evil?  There is sufficient evidence to build a case in support of either view.  Of importance is that the people represented in this vision are standing for good and standing in opposition to evil.  If that there is no doubt. 

Revelation 11:5
“And if any man desireth to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies; and if any man shall desire to hurt them, in this manner must he be killed.”
The saints on earth are in view in this vision.  Obviously literal fire does not come from the mouth of Christians.  This figure draws its meaning from the words spoken by God to Jeremiah in 5:14, “Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.”  The image here is of power which is for the protection of the saints and the conquest of their enemies.  The fire coming out of the mouths of the witnesses is the condemnation of sin and the judgment of God on the unrighteous.  we also see here the fate of those who would oppress the saints. 

Revelation 11:6
“These have the power to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy: and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire.”
Again we see the imagery of the power of the saints being drawn from old testament figures.  Elijah prayed for a drought that lasted “three years and six months” (Luke 4:25, James 5:17), and Moses turned the water in Egypt to blood (Exodus 7:20).  It is interesting that the drought of Elijah lasted the exact same period of time that the holy city would be trodden underfoot and period of time that the two witnesses would prophecy.  All of these figures of divine retribution were seen in the old testament and refer to God’s judgment on the Roman Empire.  The Jewish Christians familiar with the ancient prophets would associate these things with the plagues they inflicted on their oppressors by the power of God.  God was answering their prayers and they knew the difficulties that were befalling the Roman Empire were a direct result of God’s intervention on their behalf. 

Revelation 11:7
“And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them.”
And here starts some of the grimmest prophecy of John’s vision so far.  The Christians, represented as the two witnesses, who were trying to bring those who were their bitterest mortal enemies to Christ were going to suffer heavy casualties.  We will see more of this beast that cometh up out of the abyss later on, but for now it is obvious this is the enemy of the Christians who is making war against them.  And sadly, the suffering Christians are being told that they will be overcome and suffer greatly. 

Revelation 11:8
“And their dead bodies (lie) in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.”
Scholars are divided on whether this is a reference to Jerusalem or not.  Certainly Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem.  History records that no Christians were killed in Jerusalem when it was destroyed by the Roman Empire.  The internal evidence of Revelation places the dating of its writing during the reign of Vespasian who was the emperor at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.  The destruction of Jerusalem was a response from the Roman Empire against a Jewish revolt, not against the Christians.   Of significance here is the fact that regardless of when Jerusalem was destroyed in relation to the writing of Revelation, the things which must shortly come to pass certainly did have to occur after Jerusalem was destroyed.  This vision cannot be about Jerusalem because by the time it happened, Jerusalem did not even exist.  It was so totally destroyed that no Christians would have even been living in what was left of it.  This conflict is not between the Romans and the Jews.  It is between the Romans and the Christians, therefore this cannot be a reference to old Jerusalem because it did not exist at the time.  Therefore in the minds of the first readers, this “great city” would have to be Rome.  When unraveling the figurative language, something that could not have been cannot be what is represented in John’s visions. 

The words “great city” occur in Revelation 10 times in the King James translation.  In all other instances it is in reference to the Roman Empire which was ruled from the “great city” of Rome, often times referred to as Babylon in Revelation.  Never was old Jerusalem referred to as a “great city”.  In fact, old Jerusalem is never directly mentioned in Revelation.  The only mention of Jerusalem in Revelation is in reference to the new Jerusalem.  This is a significant clue to take into consideration on whether Revelation was written before or after the destruction of Jerusalem.  If Revelation were written before AD 70, then why was old Jerusalem never mentioned?  Why would Jesus Christ address 7 existing churches in Asia and neglect even a passing word to the church in Jerusalem if it existed? 

Revelation 11:9
“And from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations do (men) look upon their dead bodies three days and a half, and suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb.”
People from all over the Roman Empire and beyond saw the dead bodies of the slain Christians.  This was not a local event in a single city.  This was something much larger for all the peoples and tribes and tongues of the world to be witness too.  This image of worldwide persecution is another reason why the “great city” in verse 8 cannot be old Jerusalem.  It must be in reference to the Roman Empire where Jesus Christ was indeed crucified.  The Roman Empire is represented by the capitol city of Rome and is therefore why it was referred to the city where Jesus Christ was crucified. 

The slain Christians did not even get so much as a decent burial.  They were left to serve as public displays for all who would see and know of their fate and why.  It’s almost like a demonstration of what awaits those who refuse to bow down and worship the emperor.  This went on for the same amount of time that the church represented as the “two witnesses” testified of Jesus to the lost. 

Revelation 11:10
“And they that dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and make merry; and they shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth.”
The oppressors of the Christians who tried to utterly destroy them from the face of the earth were quite happy with themselves.  They celebrated among themselves over their apparent victory over the Christians who tormented them with the warnings of God’s judgment upon their evil activities.  They got tired of hearing about it.  Those Christians were doing their jobs.  They were warning the lost, they were letting them know what was in store for them despite the obvious danger to themselves for doing it. 

It is heart wrenching to consider that these valiant Christians were so persecuted that their enemies actually thought they had finally overcome them once and for all.  It must have been horrendous for the saints of God in those days.  They were being persecuted to the death and their persecutors were celebrating it.

Revelation 11:11
“And after the three days and a half the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them that beheld them.”
The two witnesses which represent the saints on earth which collectively make up the church appeared for a time to have been destroyed.  Where the church may have been stamped out in one area of the empire, it rose up in another, or back in the same place it was before.  The church, which is simply a collection of God’s people, could not be destroyed completely and those who thought so were greatly distressed when they saw it rise up again.  The individual saints were not resurrected.  The dead martyrs remained dead.  God’s collective people are in view in this vision.  The Christians who received John’s letter would know that many of them would die but they were reassured that the church would live on.  This is important information for the oppressed Christians indeed.  Think about how concerned they must have been for their children.  To die the death of a martyr is horrible in and of itself, but the greatest agony of all to a parent who is martyred is to leave their children unprotected and unsupported.  Yes there are many of them who are going to die, but take comfort because Satan is not going to win, the church will go on and your children will not be left without hope.  The greatest hope the Christian can ever have is in Christ and as long as this hope exists, there can be no ultimate defeat. 

Revelation 11:12
“And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they went up into heaven in the cloud; and their enemies beheld them.”
Here is the reward of the faithful Christians who die in the persecution.  They will not remain dead, rather they will ascend into heaven in the end, glorified in the sight of their enemies.  What a comfort this must have been to the oppressed saints.  Keeping in mind that Revelation is written to them specifically and not to their enemies, this is a picture of their final destiny.  They are being reassured that they will ascend into heaven to be with God the Father forever.

Revelation 11:13
“And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell; and there were killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons: and the rest were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.”
Earthquakes and other natural calamities have been set up to represent God’s judgment on the enemies of righteousness earlier in the Revelation.  This earthquake which destroyed part of the city is a partial judgment.  The enemies of righteousness were not utterly obliterated.  The seven thousand persons killed would be the total destruction of God’s enemies in the part of the city that fell.  The city is likely more than just the city of Rome, representing the entire Roman Empire ruled from the world-city of Rome. 

The survivors who were not in the parts of the empire that fell started to recognize the power of God and of truth.  Paganism was unable to defeat the Christians and was starting to lose its grip as people were scared and starting to see the power of the God of the Christians.  This does not mean a wholesale repentance and conversion to God, rather a weakening of paganism as people realized their manmade gods were useless and incapable of helping them.   The Christians had been persecuted to the point that they all but disappeared from sight, yet the plagues went on, the earthquakes continued, the problems which was tearing the empire down bit by bit continued. 

This is evidence that at the core, the enemies of Christianity really knew they were at fault.  They see the Christians loving their enemies, doing good to all, proclaiming righteousness everywhere they went and going to their deaths for what they believed in.  How can that many people die for their beliefs and not leave an impression on their enemies?  Killing them did not defeat them, they came back, oppressing them did not work, they simply tried to love everyone to the truth.  The enemies of the Christians do not have to know God in order to recognize that He exists and is behind them.  Most people know when they are doing evil regardless of what the masses of humanity around them might be doing.  People take comfort and security in numbers and those who persecuted the Christians were no different.  But way down deep inside, they knew they were wrong and this is why they hated the Christians so much. 

Revelation 11:14
“The second Woe is past: behold, the third Woe cometh quickly.”
Before the fifth angel sounded his trumpet we have the pronouncement of three woes upon the inhabitants of the earth, each one associated with the sounding of a trumpet (Revelation 8:13).  The first of the three woes which was heralded by the fifth trumpet was the plagues of disease which accompany the kind of decadent lifestyles the Romans were living which struck them from within the empire (Revelation 9:1-11).  Then following in verse 12 of chapter nine we read, “One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter“.  The second woe which was heralded by the sixth trumpet was the nation enemies of the Roman Empire which struck them from without Revelation 9:13-21.  And then from Revelation 10:1 to now is a buildup to what is about to happen, “but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which he declared to his servants the prophets” (Revelation 10:7).  We see God’s swift retribution during this period, the bittersweet message that John took into his bowels and the instruction that he still had more to prophecy before all the people of the earth.  And then in chapter 11 we see the power of the saints over their enemies, the death of many of the saints and the appearance of the victory of evil over the Christians for a short period of time in various places.  we need to keep in mind that this is not a linear step by step progression, rather it is indicative of what was going on across the entire empire over a period of time.  Then in the days when the seventh trumpet begins to sound the mystery of God is now apparent to the saints as given to the prophets.  The good tidings is the gospel, the good news, the way of redemption from sin and the ultimate victory of the righteous over the unrighteous. 

It is significant to the understanding of the following elements of John’s vision to take note of the text.  The third woe comes quickly on the heels of the second woe.  There is no long period of time in view in this vision.  The final woe which occurs concurrently with the sounding of the seventh trumpet is upon them.

Revelation 11:15
“And the seventh angel sounded; and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world is become (the kingdom) of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
At long last, the seventh angel sounds.  The immediate focus of the book of Revelation is directed at the first century Christians following up to the downfall of the Roman Empire in the following years.  The kingdom of the world being the Roman Empire in the minds of the first readers has been overtaken by God and His Son and He shall rule it forever.  For many hundreds of years God has punished and afflicted the empire, breaking it down, piece by piece and now in the end when all who have been saved have come to Christ and there remains no further prospects, the empire is thrown down and becomes the property of the victor.  That is what normally happens when an empire is overthrown, especially in those times.  To the victor go the spoils of war, and so to God went the kingdom of the world.  This was a way of illustrating to the first readers, the final and ultimate defeat of their enemies and the everlasting reign of the champion of the righteous. 

The application we can make for today is that we today are still faced with a parallel of the events leading up to the end of the kingdom of the world we see today.  For the Christians living under the rule of the Roman Empire, the final trumpet has sounded.  For us, Christ is reigning from His throne in heaven just like He was in the first, second and third century and our seventh trump is yet to sound.  For us, the perception of the world is that it is in charge of its own destiny, but we know better than that.  The same eternal God that overthrew the evil Roman Empire is still at work today.  In the end at the sound of the final trump, all the kingdoms of the world will have been overthrown and Christ who is reigning from Heaven will deliver His eternal kingdom back to the Father and all those who have overcome throughout all the ages will receive their eternal home in glory with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. 

Revelation 11:16
“And the four and twenty elders, who sit before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces and worshipped God,”
These are the same 24 elders that we saw in the beginning of this vision.  They fall on their faces and worship God when they see His great plan come to its final stage and the kingdom of the earth who oppressed their brothers and sisters in Christ have finally been overthrown.

Revelation 11:17
“saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who art and who wast; because thou hast taken thy great power, and didst reign.”
The thanks they give is gratitude expressed for all that God had done for them.  The plan of redemption upon which their hopes rested, the deliverance of them to eternal life despite the efforts of their enemies and the final triumph of God over the evil forces of Satan.  So many saints had died in the great persecution, but they were victorious anyway.  So much blood had been spilled but the rewards for those who overcome are eternal.  And the 24 elders thanked God for coming through and doing what He promised.

Revelation 11:18
“And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and (the time) to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great; and to destroy them that destroy the earth.”
The nations of the world were angry with the Christians and tried to destroy them all, but then God’s wrath came and the dead were all rewarded according to their deeds.  Notice this is being described in the past tense.  This signifies that the sounding of the seventh trumpet is so sure, so certain that it is depicted by inspiration as having already occurred. 

It is significant here to note that God placed the blame for the destruction of the earth upon the unrighteous.  As we learned earlier God’s retribution on the empire was handed out in the form of destructive natural disasters upon the earth.  The blame for this is placed squarely on the heads of the enemies of God.  All of the earthquakes, storms, famines, floods and other plagues which afflicted the Roman Empire were their own fault and those who brought this destruction upon the earth are going to be destroyed. 

Natural disasters have not stopped.  We still have them today.  Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts, heat, famine, floods, disease are running rampant over the earth.  The same God who wrought all this destruction on the Roman Empire is still reigning in heaven today.  All of these horrible events which result in enormous losses of life and property are the results of sin and those who are responsible for this today are going to be destroyed just like the ones in the Roman Empire were.  We see the parallels of what went on at that time all around us today on a worldwide scale.  It would take a blind and foolish individual indeed not to recognize this and draw the obvious conclusions. 

When we hear of a horrendous natural disaster where hundreds of thousands of people die and we hear people cry out in mental anguish over the devastation and death, and we see the suffering of those who survived and we hear people question the existence and mercy of an all powerful God, we can take what we learn from Revelation and give people those answers.  And the remedy today is the same as it was in the first, second and third centuries.  Repent and turn to God and His righteousness.  

Revelation 11:19
“And there was opened the temple of God that is in heaven; and there was seen in his temple the ark of his covenant; and there followed lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail.”
This vision started with the throne room of God opened for view and it ends the same way.  The Roman Empire is gone but God’s throne room is still standing, still visible in the vision and still open.  The ark of the covenant in the tabernacle and in Solomon’s temple was where the tables containing God’s covenant with His people was kept.  The image of the ark in this vision assured the readers that God’s covenant was close to Him and He would honor it. 

The lightnings, thunders, voices and other things that accompanied the throne scene are the same as they were in Revelation 4:5.  This is representative of the power of God on His throne.  John was told he still had more prophecy to write down in Revelation 10:11.  The throne is still open, the voices are still coming forth, there is more yet to come.   In the vision following this, we will see the same good characters and the same evil ones, the same conflict with the same results but with more details and more information.   This is evidence that the events represented by the seven trumpets were not occurring in a linear timeline but were happening concurrent with one another across the empire.   Chapter 11 closes with the kingdom of earth being overthrown and God and His faithful emerging triumphant but the scenes are going to be revisited in the chapters to come.  This repeating imagery is an application we can draw to our circumstances today.  The events we have studied in this vision can be compared to historical events that have occurred throughout the Christian age.  Even today, we who are righteous can study these visions and read our history and see them being re-enacted over and over again.  How many nations will be overthrown before mankind as a whole finally wakes up and sees that His own evil lifestyle is what perpetuated all the misery.  Where is the kingdom of God headed today and what will be the state of things when the last trump sounds for all? 

Summary Paraphrase

Revelation 11

And I was given a measuring stick and told to go count the number of the faithful.  But I was told not to measure those outside the church because they have been given over to the world and they will oppress my holy saints for a period of time.  And during this time of persecution, my poor oppressed saints will witness to them and try to teach them the error of their ways. 

And they will warn those who harm them of God’s judgment.  They will be warned that death awaits those who kill God’s saints and that plagues will be sent upon the earth on behalf of His faithful children.  And when their testimony is finished the Roman Empire which ascended up out of the bottomless pit will wage war with them and try to destroy them all from the face of the earth and will prevail over the church for a space of time.  The dead bodies of God’s saints will be seen throughout the empire and they won’t even get decent burials.  Their enemies will rejoice and celebrate because they think they have rid themselves of those who condemned their evil ways for so long. 

But after a period of time the Christians reappeared and their enemies saw them again and there followed a great earthquake which destroyed a large portion of the empire and many people died from it.  Those who survived saw the destruction and realized that the God of the Christians was behind them and the reappearance of the church.  This second woe is past and now the third one follows quickly. 

Then seventh angel sounded and it was announced in heaven that the empire had fallen and was no longer in the possession of the enemies of the Christians.  Then the twenty four elders which sat before God on His throne fell prostrate on their faces saying, “Thank you Lord God almighty, who lives forever, because you have taken over the evil empire with your great power and have reigned as our King.  The nations were angry with us and persecuted us greatly but now your wrath has at last come and your enemies are judged and your children who are your saints and fear your name both small and great are rewarded.  And now you shall destroy those who are really responsible for the destruction that has plagued the earth.”

And the throne room of God was opened in heaven, and God had with Him the promises of His covenant with His children and He spoke with great power of more things which will be.

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The Sixth Trumpet Announcement (Revelation 9:13-21)

The Sixth Trumpet Announcement  (Revelation 9:13-21)

The first five woes announced by the trumpets have passed.  Before we go any further, it needs to be pointed out that these woes on the enemies of God’s children did not occur in a progressive step by step fashion over the Roman Empire.  They overlapped and ran concurrent with each other to a large degree.  There were earthquakes, famines, plagues and other natural disasters throughout the history of the Roman Empire and they happened at random times over diverse territories.  One of the next major contributing factors to the decline of the Roman Empire was unsuccessful wars against their enemies.  Their enemies were constantly attacking their borders and their most bitter adversaries were the Parthians to the east.  The Roman empire tried to conquer the Parthians but were never successful at it.  Part of the reason the Roman Empire could not subdue them was because of their own internal civil wars.  Their internal conflicts kept them from a concerted effort to finally overtake them and destroy them. 

In 53 BC, the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus invaded Parthia in search of desperately needed gold to fund Roman military campaigns. The Parthian armies used both their light archery and heavy armored calvaries to hand Crassus a decisive defeat at the Battle of Carrhae.  After the battle, the victorious Parthians fed Crassus molten gold as a symbolic gesture of his greed. This was the beginning of a series of wars that were to last for almost three centuries.  In 39 BC, following a successful battle against the Parthians led by Marc Antony the Euphrates River became the border between the Roman and the Parthian Empire.  As we will see in this vision, the Euphrates river plays a role in the vision of the 6th trumpet.  As we look into this vision, let’s keep in mind that this is still part of the seventh seal.  Each seal picturing in a graphic way a progression of scenes beginning with the coming of righteousness, followed by the coming of evil and then the forces of evil at war with righteousness and now with the seventh seal, revealing the divine retribution of God upon the enemies of the Christians.  Even when God has had enough and begins doing those things which will bring the empire down, his highest priority is still the salvation of the lost.  The sixth trumpet announcement is another tool at the disposal of God with which He afflicts the Empire thereby chiseling away at its ability to remain in  power. 

Revelation 9:13
“And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God”
The golden alter here is likely the same one from which the angel in Revelation 8:3 offered the prayers of the saints with much incense to God. 

Rev 9:14
“one saying to the sixth angel that had one trumpet, Loose the four angels that are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
At the time of the Revelation, the Euphrates river was the eastern boundary between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire.  The Parthians were Rome’s greatest enemy at the time of the writing of the Revelation. 

The Parthian Empire is a fascinating period of Persian history closely connected to Greece and Rome. Ruling from 247 B.C. to A.D. 228 in ancient Persia (Iran), the Parthians defeated Alexander the Great’s successors, the Seleucids, conquered most of the Middle East and southwest Asia, controlled the Silk Road and built Parthia into an Eastern superpower. The Parthian empire counterbalanced Rome’s dominance in the West. Parthia at one time occupied areas now in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaidzhan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.

The Euphrates River is mentioned by name in this vision.  This would certainly suggest that the actual river is in view here.  Being mentioned before the horsemen in this vision appears to mean that this river is going to be the area or the direction from which the sixth plague on the empire will come.  The Parthian cavalry was world renowned and dreaded for their war tactics from horseback.  The Roman Empire, eager to push its borders further and the Parthians likewise desiring to conquer more territory were bitter enemies.  The Euphrates River became a hotly disputed border between the two with each empire seemingly digging in their heels and refusing to retreat any further. 

We see a parallel in this vision with the sixth bowl of wrath in Revelation 16:12, where the Euphrates river was effected in such a way as to prepare the way for the kings of the east.  The kings of the east were the Parthians.  Vassal kingdoms made up much of their territory and each one had its king and to say there was no love lost between them and the Roman Empire is a profound understatement.

The plague announced here with the sixth trumpet appears to be the incessant attacks of the Parthian Kings across the Euphrates and into Roman territory.  It was a significant drain on Roman resources to defend this border from attack and served to contribute to the erosion of Rome’s power. 

Rev 9:15
“And the four angels were loosed, that had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, that they should kill the third part of men.”
The number 4 was symbolic of the world in which we live so these four angels may have represented the enemies of the Romans on a worldwide scale.  The Parthians, while bitter enemies of the Roman Empire were not its only adversaries.  The Romans faced a number of other great enemies besides the Parthians, such as the Germans which included the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths.  It was the Visigoths who paved the way for the final downfall of the Roman Empire defeating and sacking the city of Rome in 410 A.D.  It is significant to note that the Germanic tribes which invaded the Empire from the west were horsemen just like the Parthian Cavalry. 

Being prepared for the precise time period stated simply means that God had them prepared beforehand to do His exact bidding at the time of His choosing.  The third part of men killed does not literally mean that exactly a third of all mankind perished in this plague, rather it means that a lot of people perished in this judgment doubtless being represented by the slain on both sides of the conflict. 

It does not say in this announcement that the saints of God are excluded from this plague.  This is a picture of war and good people die as a consequence of it.  The saints of all time can take great comfort in the assurance that all the faithful who die will be counted with the victorious and will inherit the rewards and promises of those who die in Christ. 

Revelation 9:16
“And the number of the armies of the horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand: I heard the number of them.”
This army of horsemen numbered 2 times ten thousand times ten thousand which is 200,000,000.  If we take this number literally and give space for each man to be on a horse the area of land which this would encompass would be roughly a strip of land 1 mile wide and 200 or so miles long giving each horse and horseman an area 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. 

This number is not to be taken literally.  In fact it is so fantastic a literal number that one should almost be aware of the fact of it’s figurative representation simply from the sheer enormity of the numbers involved.  To put such a number in perspective, if each horse ate 10 pounds of grain a day that would be 2 billion pounds of feed every single day.  That would be roughly 45,000 loads of feed from a full sized modern day grain trailer pulled behind an over the road truck every single day.  If each horse drank 5 gallons of water every day we are looking at a billion gallons of water every day.  It would take a good sized river to furnish that kind of fresh water and we need to keep in mind that they are going to need to fit 200 miles of horses one mile wide along the banks of this river just to give them a chance to drink.  And if this isn’t enough, we still have not fed the horsemen.   The U.S. Census Bureau reports that there is an estimated 303,000,000 people, men, women and children in the United States in 2008.  The number of horsemen in the vision if they were literal would have been two thirds of the total population of the United States.  When dealing with numbers of this magnitude, we need to be realistic about them.  There simply were not enough resources and capability in that day and time to even consider mobilizing such a force at one time.  In the first century, this number was symbolic of a sufficient number to carry out God’s retribution on the Roman Empire. 

While the Parthians were the enemy behind the Euphrates River, in consideration of the fact that the Roman Empire had many more enemies than just them, being represented by the number which symbolized the world in which we live and considering the vastness of the number used to represent these horsemen, it is entirely likely this number represented the sum total of all the horsemen of all the enemies of Rome through all the centuries leading up to its downfall.  The first readers would probably have been aware of that fact based on the sheer size of the number, knowing instantly that there were not even that many horsemen and horses in any one cavalry in any one kingdom at any one time in history. 

Revelation 9:17
“And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates (as) of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone: and the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceedeth fire and smoke and brimstone.”
A large factor making the Parthians such a formidable foe was their vicious and effective methods of horsemanship warfare.  The Parthians had perfected horseback warfare to the degree that they were a deadly foe whether charging forward or in retreat.  They were proficient horseback archers with the skills to shoot enemies with arrows even from behind them.  They also originated the fully armored type of horseback soldier known as the Cataphract.  These horses and riders were heavily armored and made them especially difficult to defeat, especially for the Roman foot soldiers. 

The heads of lions represented great strength.  The armor they wore was dependant upon the role they played.  The archers were lightly armored for speed while the Cataphracts were armored both rider and horse.  The single most devastating weapon that could be used at a distance was fire.  The invading horsemen would burn everything in their path to the degree required to secure victory.  Incendiary devices were standard weapons of war.  Burning arrows were used to set flammable structures on fire.  Military engineers of the day dedicated themselves to finding ways of ensuring that the fires burned long enough to catch.  Liquid fire was used as early as 429 BC when the Spartans used burning charcoal saturated in pitch and sulfur to burn the walls down in the seige of Plataea.  A century later Aeneas Tacticus mentions a mixture of sulphur, pitch, charcoal packed in wooden vessels, ignited and thrown onto the wooden decks of enemy ships.  Arrows were dipped in flaming mixtures of liquid pitch and sulphur and then fired at the enemies, burning everything flammable in their path.  This was all taking place centuries before the Parthians started invading the Roman Empire across the Euphrates River.  This type of warfare had been around for a long time and the Parthians knew exactly how to wage it.  It should be noted that brimstone is the ancient name for a sulphurous substance. 

Revelation 9:18
“By these three plagues was the third part of men killed, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their mouths.”
Fire, smoke and brimstone in conjunction are always figures for divine judgment in scripture.  Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown by fire and brimstone raining down on them from heaven (Gen 19:24).  The Psalmist wrote “Upon the wicked he [God] will rain snares; fire and brimstone and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup (Psalm 11:6).  In warning wayward Israel of God’s forthcoming judgment Ezekiel wrote, “And with pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him; and I will rain upon him, and upon his hordes, and upon the many peoples that are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone” (Ezekiel 38:22). 

Whether all this fire and brimstone was literal or not, we can look back at old testament scripture and plainly see that some of it was and given the ancient use of fire as a weapon, we can easily infer that it was used many centuries preceding the writing of Revelation.  This terrible form of warfare took a heavy toll on the Romans.  Countless millions of people obviously perished as a result.  There can be little doubt as to the literalness of the terrible consequences that came about as a result of these attacks upon the Roman Empire.  

Revelation 9:19
“For the power of the horses is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails are like unto serpents, and have heads; and with them they hurt.”
Twice now it is mentioned that these terrible plagues are issuing from the mouths and tails of the horses.  Fire, smoke and brimstone do not come from the literal mouths and tails of horses.  But horses with riders who can shoot flaming arrows dipped in burning pitch and sulphur and who are capable of accurately firing these weapons facing either forward or backwards on their mounts are certainly going to give the impression that the fire is coming both from the mouth or tail areas of the horses. 

The image here is more of terror, panic and loss of life than it is of literal fire and brimstone.  While we have a plausible explanation for all three plagues, we need to focus on the results and the objective more than anything.  Many people were dying because they refused to repent.  God’s primary purpose here was to bring people to repentance.  Natural disasters, disease and internal corruption had not done the job.  Now it’s time for a more direct approach.  

Revelation 9:20
“And the rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk:”
The men who were not killed (worldly or evil men) still did not repent even though they were seeing their empire slowly disintegrating before their eyes.  The righteous are not under consideration in this vision.  God wants all men to be saved but these refused to repent.  The whole purpose of this judgment upon the Roman empire was to bring the unrighteous repentance.  God has gone to great lengths to try to get the ungodly to think about their fate, stop persecuting Christians and stop worshipping their manmade idols which were worthless, lifeless and represented nothing real.

The lifeless qualities of their manmade idols in this vision are reminiscent of language used in the old testament to describe them.  In Jeremiah 10:1-6, Isaiah 44:9-20 and 46:5-7 we read of God’s utter disdain for these things and of His warning that they are worthless and of no benefit.  In Isaiah 44:20, the prophet wrote that those who follow after such things “feedeth on ashes”. 

Revelation 9:21
“and they repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”
This is basically a repeat of verse 20 added for emphasis.  By repeating Himself, God is making sure His readers understand what He is saying and driving it home by repeating it to them.  The unrighteous who perished from the various woes inflicted upon them had their fate sealed.  But those who survived had a wonderful opportunity to see the fate that awaited them if they failed to heed the warning.  The unrighteous had it within their power to avoid everything evil that was happening to them and refused to change their ways. 

This vision completes the three instruments God would use to bring about the fall of the Roman Empire.  These three instruments were natural calamity, internal disease and decadence and external invasion by her enemies.  These instruments of God’s judgment were already partially at work in the first century and history shows us that all three of these were significantly instrumental in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. 

The text of verse 20 and 21 indicate that God’s judgment in these visions were aimed at the enemies of righteousness and not at the Christians.  The Christians might suffer in the earthly application of these woes but they would not suffer the eternal fate of the unrighteous.  This vision was given as reassurance that good shall triumph over evil and that those who overcome and remain faithful unto death will be victorious in the end.

Some additional thoughts to consider:

What an application we can make from this to ourselves today.  There is a quote saying this, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Let us pause and give serious reflection to what we see going on in the most powerful nation on earth today.  Homosexuality and sexual decadence were an earmark of the behavior of the Romans and what happened to them?  Disease, decay and corruption.  The Romans practiced infanticide as a means of birth control.  They slaughtered their babies.  What about abortion today in the most powerful nation on earth?  Consider the natural disasters that occurred in the Roman Empire and give pause to think about the storms and earthquakes and other natural disasters going on in the most powerful nation on earth in these current times.  What about this sixth judgment where the enemies of the Roman Empire started attacking them and picking away at them bit by bit and piece by piece.  Now what about this most recent enemy of the most powerful nation of the earth today rising up and causing death and destruction, depleting the resources at hand which are necessary to withstand them.   We today know what the fate of the Roman Empire was and why.  We can see the parallels going on right in front of our faces.  Will we as a people repent before it is too late or will history see yet another world power rise and fall because of Godlessness?  And while we are considering these things, we also need to give attention to how to get this message to the unrighteous.  If the message of hope comes not from us, then from whence will it come?   

Summary Paraphrase

Rev 9:13-21

Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and from the four horns of the golden altar which stands before God I heard a voice speak to the sixth angel instructing him to release a plague of horsemen which had been held back at the great River Euphrates.  This plague which had been prepared beforehand was ready to strike at the exact appointed time and was liberated so they would destroy about a third of all mankind in their wake.  I was told the number of the armies of the horsemen and they were two hundred million strong.

In my vision, I saw the horses and those who sat upon them and their riders were armored with breastplates red like fire and blue like sapphires and yellow like sulfur.  The horses’ heads were powerful as lions and from before them poured out fire, smoke and sulfurous fumes.   Many of mankind were killed in these attacks.  The power of the fiery plagues looked like it was coming from their mouths and their tails.  And I could see their heads like deadly serpents from their tails and they wounded people from behind them. 

But the rest of humanity who were not killed in these attacks refused to stop worshipping devils and manmade idols of gold and silver and of brass and stone, and of wood, all of which are without life, unable to see or hear or walk.  Moreover, they also refused to stop murdering and practicing sorceries and sexual immorality. 

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The Fifth Trumpet (Revelation 9:1-12)

The Fifth Trumpet  (Revelation 9:1-12)

In Chapter 8 we saw God selectively using natural calamities and their resultant consequences to inflict His judgment on the enemies of righteousness.  The fifth woe is a little different.  The consequences here are applied directly to the unrighteous with the faithful Christians being excused from the torment.  This is a lot more selective and specific than using an earthquake to devastate an entire region where Christians almost certainly lived and had to be affected in some way.

Looking at the figurative language it is easy to see that interpretations of the following chapter have been diverse and often times unsatisfactory when it involves literalizing such amazing creatures as we see depicted here.  As with the rest of the visions, we must look at the overall picture and try and pick out what the activities are and who is involved in order to properly understand it.   We must also keep in mind that the message of Revelation is “signified” as indicated in the first verse of the first chapter so we cannot expect these creatures to be real.  In fact, they are so incredibly unreal that one would almost certainly be aware of the fact that they are symbolic from the sheer degree of the abnormality in the characteristics they are described with.   We must focus on activities more than actors and on the characteristics more than the characters. In short, we have to look more at the forest and less at the trees.  Once we have discerned the forest, then we can go back and look at the individual trees and use them to compliment and complete the image of the forest.

First of all, who are the ones being punished here.  Verse 4 reads, “but only such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads.” Those who have the “seal of God on their foreheads” is a figurative term for “the servants of our God” identified in Revelation 7:3.  Those who are not the servants of God are then going to be the only recipients of this divine punishment.   We have just effectively eliminated a whole host of millennial beliefs about this chapter that put these fantastic creatures at war with Christians.  The millennialists have it backwards.  Whatever these creatures represent, according to God’s command, they are no threat whatsoever to the faithful servants of God.   Faithful Christians have nothing whatsoever to fear from this plague, it being directed solely on the unrighteous.  This is a key element in trying to figure out specifically what is being represented in this scene of the vision so let’s keep that in mind as we move forward.

The next key component is the realization that the plague of the fifth trumpet would not kill the enemies of righteousness.  This is not the case with the sixth but for now, we have a valuable clue to help us determine what the plague announced by the fifth trumpet represents.  This plague represented by some pretty fantastic looking locusts is not fatal to all the enemies of righteousness.  In fact, verse 6 says the afflicted will be so miserable they will desire to die but they can’t.  So what we have so far is a plague represented by locusts, which is going to afflict only those who are not faithful Christians and will severely torment them but not be fatal.

The next key component is seen in verse 10, “And they have tails like unto scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men five months.”  The number 5 is representative of human incompleteness or limited power.  This is not a literal period of 5 months rather is representative of an incomplete or relatively short period of time as opposed to a complete destruction or a permanent affliction.  In short, this was something the enemies of righteousness would recover from over time.  By now it is fairly apparent that the fifth woe was some sort of terrible non-fatal disease.  But what kind of disease would afflict only those who are unfaithful to God?

The next clue is that the power of the locusts to afflict the non-Christians is found in their tails.   The Roman Empire was known for its decadence and sexual immorality.  With sexual immorality come diseases of all sorts.  Diseases that a faithful Christian who lives righteously would never ever have to worry about because they would not be participating in the activities that promote the spread of such diseases.  Some of these diseases are painful in the extreme, especially in a society with no knowledge of antibiotics or other effective treatments for such maladies.  They would simply have to live with these diseases until they ran their course.  History records that sexually transmitted diseases were rampant in the Roman Empire.  With all of the pagan worship to manmade gods, many of which included wild orgiastic rituals, it is not at all surprising.  The practice of homosexuality was also extremely prevalent in this culture which further promotes the potential for disease.  With the announcement of the 5th woe we see the Roman Empire becoming the victims of the consequences of their own decadent sexually unrestrained society.    Now looking back at the locusts with the power to harm contained within their tails, we need to associate those tails with the part of the human anatomy involved in the carrying and transmission of a plague that affects only those who practice a decadent lifestyle.

Now that we have a working idea of what the overall vision represents, we can now look at the specifics.

Revelation 9:1
“And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven fallen unto the earth: and there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss.”
First, this star represents an individual of some sort.  Notice the keys were “given to him” and then in verse 2 it says “He opened the pit“.  Commentators are divided on who this star represents.  Many able scholars and commentators believe this star is representative of Satan while others contend that this is a divine messenger from heaven such as the angel depicted in Revelation 20:1 who bound satan and cast him into the bottomless pit.  There are difficulties associated with either view.  The former places Satan with a key or the ability to open a door out of the bottomless pit with the ability to inflict suffering on the non-Christians in this instance.  The image of Satan being pictured as a star in Revelation and in possession of a key to the bottomless pit he is ultimately going to be thrown into forever is difficult.  However Satan is pictured by Jesus as falling from heaven like lightning and in Revelation 12:7-9 Satan is said to have been cast out of heaven into the earth.  Noting the text of 9:1 which reads “fallen unto the earth“; this star whoever it may represent is a fallen individual whose destination was the earth.  It is difficult to picture Satan as a star in any form, even a fallen one in a series of visions where he is so often depicted as the devil, a serpent or the dragon.

Other commentators associate the fallen star with the angel pictured in Revelation 20:1 who descended from heaven and bound Satan and cast him into the bottomless pit.  The immediate difficulty with this interpretation is that we cannot discount the fact that the star had fallen to the earth.  There is not one single account anywhere in scripture that I have ever seen that visualizes one of God’s favored angels, carrying out their duties in His service as having fallen from heaven to the earth.  Satan having fallen to the earth is supported in scripture and as uncomfortable as I am with visualizing Satan with a key to the bottomless pit, I am forced to go where the preponderance of evidence leads.

With this said, let’s look to what Satan’s authority was on earth at the time and associate it with this key.  In Revelation 13 we have the vision of the great beast rising up out of the sea.  In verse 4 we read, “And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast“.  The dragon pictured in Revelation is always in reference to Satan so we see here that Satan was indeed given a considerable amount of power and authority and this could only come from God.  Satan is depicted elsewhere in scripture as the prince of this world in John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11, the god of this world in 2 Corinthians 4:4 and of significance to this vision, Satan is described as a “ruler of the darkness of this world” in Ephesians 6:12.  Since Satan is described as the ruler of this world and the darkness in it, he must be in possession of the ability to darken and rule it.  And the source of this darkness can be none other than the bottomless pit from whence he rules.  So in this way, Satan does indeed have a key to the bottomless pit from which he can release the influences of darkness and following in verse 2 we see that what was released from the bottomless pit was smoke and darkness that covered the earth.  The only thing that the key opened from the abyss was the ability to send smoke or deception forth which obscured the light and darkened the earth.  The key Satan possessed had limited capability. 

Revelation 9:2
“And he opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up 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.”
The fallen star released smoke out of the bottomless pit.  Smoke obscures the path and dims the light.  And this smoke was so thick it darkened the air and the sun.  This language is figurative of the the evil influence and temptation that Satan releases on the earth.   Evil is always described as darkness and righteousness is always described as light.  The smoke which caused the darkness would be those things which are at Satan’s disposal to tempt mankind with.  The darkness which overspread the sun and the sky would be then be representative of the success of Satan’s temptation as the majority of mankind was led away from the light of righteousness thus allowing the darkness of sin to prevail on the earth. 

It is significant to note here that the key in possession of the fallen star from heaven released only temptation from the bowels of the bottomless pit.  Satan is not allowed to force mankind to sin.  Mankind either chooses the light of righteousness or the darkness of sin of his own free will.   God never forces man against his will, neither does He permit Satan to force man to sin against his will or to tempt man beyond what he is able to endure (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Revelation 9:3
“And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.”
Locusts were one of the well known plagues of Egypt as written in Exodus 10:4-20.  To God’s own people He later said that if they would turn away from Him and commit sin, He would bring locusts upon them to destroy their land (Deuteronomy 28:38).  Locusts were used by God as written in Joel 1-2 to bring God’s wayward people back to Himself.    The locusts in this vision are therefore certainly representative of a plague.  1 Kings 8:35-37 teaches us that God sent natural pestilences and famine on the unrighteous in order to bring them to repentance,  “When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou dost afflict them: then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, when thou teachest them the good way wherein they should walk; and send rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance.  If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting (or) mildew, locust (or) caterpillar; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be“. 

Notice that the plague came out of the smoke and not directly from the fallen star.  Satan, the fallen star sends the smoky darkness of sin to cover the light and from this darkness is spawned all the ravages, ruin, sickness and destruction which afflicted the unrighteous.  Retribution does not come directly from Satan, rather it comes from God as a consequence of sin. 

Power was given to this plague represented by locusts similar to the power of a scorpion.  A scorpion’s power is in his tail to sting and to cause pain and suffering.  We will see more of this power in the tail of scorpion in verse 5 and again in verse 10.

Revelation 9:4
“And it was said unto them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads.”
This plague represented by locusts is said to cause no harm to grass or trees or anything with vegetation.  This is all the evidence we need to determine that these are not literal locusts in view here.  Literal locusts destroy nothing but vegetation as they sweep across a land eating the leaves off of nearly every plant in their wake.  These locusts are different from literal locusts and they are told to afflict only the people who “have not the seal of God on their foreheads“.   As seen earlier those who bear the figurative seal of God on their foreheads are identified as servants of God in Revelation 7:3, so this plague is specifically targeted at the unrighteous. 

Revelation 9:5
“And it was given them 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 it striketh a man.”
This plague was not completely fatal to all that were afflicted by it.  The number 5 is half of 10 and represented human incompleteness or limited power, therefore this plague was limited in its ability to kill.  People afflicted by this plague would be able to get over it and survive. 

The torment of this plague was said to be like being stung by a scorpion when it strikes.  Again we see a picture of the scorpion’s tail.  So what we have here is a plague which is generally non-fatal and afflicts people for a limited period of time stretching into months and is associated with the stinging tail or the hinder parts of a scorpion. 

Revelation 9:6
“And in those days men shall seek death, and shall in no wise find it; and they shall desire to die, and death fleeth from them.”
This plague is going to be so miserable that those who are afflicted with it are going to wish they were dead.  However, death is not going to be found.  The afflicted are going to be forced to bear the pain and torment as a consequence of their sin until they get over it. 

Revelation 9:7
“And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for war; and upon their heads as it were crowns like unto gold, and their faces were as men’s faces.”
John is giving us a description of the plague.  With figurative language it is important to focus on the characteristics and not the characters.  These locusts are not literal locusts, rather they are representative of a plague.  The characters used to depict this plague are not any more literal than the locusts are.  This plague is not a horse prepared for war.  It is like a horse prepared for war.  Looking into the old testament we see the plagues of locusts as prophesied by Joel in chapters 1 and 2.  In chapter 2:4-6 we read: “The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so do they run.  Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains do they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.  At their presence the peoples are in anguish; all faces are waxed pale.”  Christians familiar with old testament teachings are not going to associate these horses prepared for war as anything good.  This plague is going to overrun the unrighteous with such force and power that it’s going to be like an army of warhorses sweeping over them. 

The crowns of gold are the crowns of conquest.  This plague is going to conquer the unrighteous but from earlier text we know that this is not a permanent conquest and that the afflicted are going to survive. The men’s faces indicate that this plague is associated with men or mankind in general.  The face or its features is a primary means of identification for people.  When the first readers looked at the characteristics of this plague, they saw in its face the faces of men. This plague is not associated with the earth by floods, earthquakes or other natural disasters.  It is associated and identified with mankind as a consequence of their own corrupt and immoral lifestyles.

Revelation 9:8
“And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as (teeth) of lions.”
With the face of mankind and hair of women.  This plague had an alluring tempting characteristic to it.  It was appealing and beautiful but with all its beauty it carried with it the characteristic of lions teeth rending and tearing.  This plague was deceptive giving out the appearance of beauty but having the rending savage bite of lion’s teeth hidden within.  Such it is with all sin.  Satan successfully disguises sin from being the ugly dangerous thing it is, masking its true appearance in ways that are appealing to the senses.  James teaches us in chapter 1 starting in verse 14; “but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death”.  The plague in Revelation which came from the darkness was no different than any sin which looks good on the surface but underneath is the way of death.

Revelation 9:9
“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 rushing to war.”
This plague did not have literal breastplates of iron, rather this imagery illustrates the power and resistance of the plague.  It’s resilient, strong and hard to overcome.  Again we see similar imagery to what was written in Joel regarding the plagues God sent during that time.  They were like a conquering army sweeping across the land like an army of horses would sweep across the landscape.  Unstoppable, powerful, relentless and without mercy, striking down all who are unrighteous and participate in the immoral and decadent activities which were prevalent in this society.  Keeping in mind that this plague was targeted specifically toward the unrighteous.   The righteous had nothing to fear from this plague but to the unrighteous, this plague was armor plated. 

Revelation 9:10
“And they have tails like unto scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men five months.”
This is almost a repeat of verse 5 except that in verse 5 we learned that this plague was non-lethal.  In verse 5 the tail of the scorpion as the source of the torment is alluded to in vague terms, however here it is specifically mentioned in this capacity.  The power of this plague is found in the tail and it torments for a limited period of time.  As mentioned earlier, diseases brought about by a sexually prolific society were rampant in the Roman Empire.   Their society was noted for unrestrained homosexuality, orgiastic behavior associated with worship to sexual pagan Gods and widespread prostitution especially towards the Roman soldiers.  The Roman soldiers carrying these various diseases and visiting the houses of prostitution in each town spread them all over the empire as they traveled from city to city.  History records that sexually transmitted diseases of all kinds were of epidemic proportions and caused all kinds of misery and torment for the ones afflicted. 

A faithful Christian, abiding faithfully under the rule of Christ would never ever have to worry this plague.  These locusts with the faces of men, hair of women, teeth of lions and tails like scorpions would have no effect on a faithful Christian.  Even today we know that the best defense against these kinds of diseases is to refrain totally from these kinds of activities.  With our technology today we have things like blood transfusions which can infect the innocent, but these kinds of things were not possible in the Roman Empire.  Faithful Christians living in the Roman Empire who practiced celibacy for the unmarried and monogamy for the married had nothing to fear from sexually transmitted diseases and with extremely rare exceptions this holds true today.  In the 21st century we have a plague worse than the Roman Empire ever faced.  We have one today that kills and can be transmitted from the pregnant mother to her unborn child.  This disease is a direct consequence of homosexual activity.  The Roman Empire never faced AIDS but we do today.  And sadly, the cure for the spread of this epidemic is the same as it was for the Romans.  The Christian life, faithfully lived would eventually end the spread of this and all such diseases associated with this immoral type of lifestyle. 

In the very first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he alluded specifically to the consequences of this kind of immoral lifestyle.  It is obvious from the tone of Paul’s language that this sort of thing was widespread among the Romans and in his letter he said that, “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves: for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.  For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions: for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature:  and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due” (Romans 1:24-27).

Revelation 9:11
“They have over them as king the angel of the abyss: his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek (tongue) he hath the name Apollyon.”
We know who the angel of the abyss is.  This is none other than Satan himself, the deceiver, the Devil, the great red dragon.  Abaddon means “destroying angel”, and Apollyon means a “destroyer”.  Jesus is recorded as seeing Satan fall from heaven like lightning, (Luke 10:18).  Satan is pictured in Revelation 12:3 as the great red dragon having seven diadems with seven crowns as ruling over those who are at war with God and His purpose.  Satan is the source of all that is evil and from that comes the manifestation of all the consequences of evil, both on earth and in eternity hereafter. 

Revelation 9:12
“The first Woe is past: behold, there come yet two Woes hereafter.”
This again tells us that this woe is temporary and it isn’t over yet.  There is more heartache in store for the evil Roman Empire.

Summary Paraphrase:

Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw one who was once a great power in heaven but had fallen from the sky to the earth; and to him was given a key to the bottomless pit.  Then he opened the abyss and darkness like the smoke of a huge furnace came out of the opening and was so great that it darkened the sun and the sky.

Then out of the darkness came forth a great plague like swarms of locusts on the earth, and power was granted to it as the power the earth’s scorpions have. They were told not to eat the vegetation of the earth nor any green thing nor any tree, but only to attack the people who are not living faithfully before God. They were not permitted to kill the unrighteous, but only to torment them for a period of time.  And this torment was like the pain caused by a scorpion’s sting.  And when this plague strikes, the afflicted will crave death but it will flee from them.

This plague in the vision was like a thundering stampede of horses trampling everything in its path.  It was identified with the faces of men wearing golden crowns.  Long beautiful women’s hair make it look appealing but the outward beauty only concealed the ravaging teeth of lions behind it.   This plague is so hard to get over it seemed to be plated with armor and swiftly overtook the unrighteous like a vast number of horse drawn chariots going to war.  This plague tormented the unrighteous for months at a time and it came from within the tail of the locusts and its affliction was like the sting of scorpions.  And Satan, the angel of the abyss, also known as the destroyer of righteousness rules over the plague like a king.  

This plague when it is finished is not the end of things for there are two more woes yet to come upon the enemies of righteousness.

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The First Four Trumpets (Revelation 8)

The First Four Trumpets (Revelation 8)

We now know who will be able to stand when God’s retribution for the persecution of His saints is administered.  The entire story has been laid out for John.  The coming of righteousness, followed by the arrival of the unrighteous, the increasing levels of persecution by the Roman Empire and the retribution of God for the persecutors.  Then we see the explanation of who will be protected and be able to stand when God unleashes His wrath against  the enemies of Christianity and now we come to the climax of the saga.  Everything has been building to this point.  the seventh and final seal is opened and before anything happens there is a period of suspense and anticipation.  What is going to happen?  So many times in the past God’s children saw the vengeance of God on nations who opposed righteousness.   Sodom and Gomorrah comes to mind as one of the most devastating and memorable of them all, having been utterly destroyed by fire raining down on them from above.  Many were the unrighteous nations and empires toppled by God through the centuries and the readers are left for a suspenseful period of time before the wrath of God begins to fall on the persecutors of His faithful children. 

God wants all mankind to be saved and He is willing to allow His people to undergo horrible hardship in order to give all mankind the opportunity to repent and come to His saving grace but as longsuffering as God is, there are limits to what He will tolerate against His beloved children and He has reached that point and is about to act.  The Roman Empire has pushed God to the limit as we will see later on.

Many in the religious world today believe that these visions of John depict a series of events connected with the end times of all earth.  Such is not the case.  We must interpret Revelation for what it says it is and to who it claims to be written to.  The first verse of Revelation provides us with two very important pieces of information.  First the message has been “signified by His angel” which means the message contained therein has been given in symbolic language and not literal.  The key to understanding what the symbols mean is to consider what they mean elsewhere in the rest of scripture and using those to shed light on the meaning of the visions John is seeing. 

The second piece of information in the first verse which is vital to our understanding of it today is that the things revealed in the book “must shortly come to pass“.  This thought is reinforced in verse 3 and then repeated at the end of the Revelation in chapter 22:10 where inspiration says “the time is at hand“.  The time period of the 21st century is not “at hand” with the first century neither is a period of 2000 years or more to be understood as coming to pass shortly.  

A third very significant clue as to how we should understand the Revelation is found in the 4th verse of the introduction of Revelation in chapter 1.  By inspiration, John directly addresses His letter to “the seven churches which are in Asia“.  So in view of this fact and in consideration of the imminent time period under which inspiration places the events in this letter, we are forced to apply its primary relevance directly to the first readers of this letter in the first century.  Whatever this letter meant to them, must be what it means to us today.

Following is the continuation of the vision John was given.  The events seen thus far are already known to the first readers.  They know about the coming of righteousness, they already know they are living under intense persecution. Most of the things John has described to this point are things the first readers are well aware of and can relate them to their immediate circumstances.  What they want to know now is what is going to happen to the them and what is going to happen to their ruthless persecutors.  This is what they have been waiting for.  They have just learned that God is going to take measures to protect them during His retribution and now is the time.

As with the other parts of the visions, it is much easier to visualize the big picture of what is going on rather than focusing on the minute details.  What is happening in the overall vision?  God hears the prayers of His saints and visits His wrath upon the world of the ungodly. 

Revelation 8:1
“And when he opened the seventh seal, there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.”
The seventh seal is now opened.  God is on His throne and He’s put up with the persecution of His children all He’s going to.  The Angels are silent, all the martyrs and the redeemed are silent.  In the earlier parts of the vision, all the attention was focused on the throne and on God and the lamb and His Spirit.  All worship has stopped, all activities have ceased.  There is not a sound made.  All attention is now diverted to the earth.  Everyone who would be saved out of the empire has been identified and preserved.  The Roman Empire has run out of time just like ancient Babylon did as recorded in Habakkuk 2:20, “But Jehovah is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him“.   

Revelation 8:2
“And I saw the seven angels that stand before God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets.”
The seventh seal will not be like the other six which came one after another with great action. This will be a series of seven trumpets.  Let’s keep in mind that this is a vision which is intended to form in the readers mind an idea of what is taking place.  We need to focus on the picture as a whole and not so much on the minute details.  A trumpet was used as a symbol for announcing important events or actions so this was the alert to warn of the approach of the woes which are to fall upon the world.

The number 7 symbolizes the meaning of totality or completeness associated with God’s authority on the earth so the seven angels with the seven trumpets are a picture of unity, perfection, fullness and completeness of what God was going to do. 

Revelation 8:3-4
“And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.  And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.”
Incense was a symbol of ascending prayers to God.  It comes directly from the old testament alter of incense before the veil of the Tabernacle, nearest to the mercy seat where the Levitical priests burned incense every morning.  The golden censer was a pan on which live coals from the alter were placed which was used to burn the incense. 

We remember the story of Nadab and Abihu who died before the Lord for using strange or unauthorized fire.  The fire which was to be used to burn the incense in the golden censer had to be taken from the alter.  No other fire was acceptable.  The golden censer and the alter in John’s vision is reminiscent of the one in the story of Nadab and Abihu. 

In temple worship, the aroma of the burned incense represented the prayers of the Israelites to God and this meaning is carried forward into John’s vision.  The assurance to the first readers of Revelation an all thereafter is that God hears the prayers of His children and He will answer.   It must have seemed to the Christians living under the great persecution that God was not listening because they were being killed and mistreated because of their faith.  And it is difficult when life’s trials get oppressive, we often wonder if God is even listening to our prayers.  Think how much worse it would be if our fellow saints and loved ones were dying because of their faith.  The Christians living under the great persecution needed to be reassured that God was hearing their prayers and that He was going to help them.  But they also needed to understand that there would be persecution and many of them would die.  We will see later on in this study of Revelation that so many did die that the enemies of righteousness thought they had stamped out Christianity forever.  God never promises His faithful children a life of ease.  Such a thing became impossible when God granted all mankind unconditional free will.   

Yes God hears the prayers of His children.  We know this from verses of scripture such as James 5:16, 1 Peter 3:12, 1 John 3:22 and 1 John 5:14-15.  The vision of God receiving the prayers of His children served as a great comfort to those living under the great persecution and we know from the large quantity of incense given to the angel in the vision that there were a lot of prayers to be heard.  God heard them all and those who overcome will emerge victorious in the end.

Revelation 8:5
“And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake.”
The angel that offered the prayers of the persecuted Christians then fills the censer full of fire from the alter and casts it upon the world of the ungodly.  This is God’s response to the cries of His oppressed children.  The thunders, voices and lightnings were introduced earlier as expressive of the divine power, majesty and authority of God (Revelation 4:5).  An Earthquake is a familiar Old Testament figure used to describe God’s judgment against the enemies of His people.  God’s tolerance of the persecution of His children has reached His limit. 

We need to keep in mind here that this vision is an overall picture of God’s handling of the enemies of His children throughout the Roman Empire over a period of time.  All of these things did not boil up to a head with God destroying the empire in a single blinding act of Godly retribution.   Yes there were severe natural calamities such as exploding volcanoes, earthquakes, plagues and famines, but these events were spread out over vast expanses of territory and decades of time.  There are many instances in Revelation where plagues and woes were administered to the enemies of God and they repented not of their evil deeds.  God gave the woman represented as Jezebel time to repent, (Revelation 2:21.  In Revelation 9 we see later on in this vision where God released numerous plagues on the enemies of His children with the intent of bringing the survivors to repentance, (Revelation 9:20).  In Revelation 16:9-11 we see that God poured out His wrath on the enemies of His children so that they would repent.   God didn’t just reach his limit and destroy all the enemies of His children at once.  Rather He selectively administered these judgments across the empire in a progressive fashion over a period of time with the primary purpose of bringing any who would to repentance. 

What happens today when a horrendous natural disaster or major calamity befalls mankind?  When people are faced with insurmountable, unexplainable events such as earthquakes, Tsunamis and terrorist attacks where hundreds and thousands of innocent people lose their lives there is always many who turn to God for comfort and support.  Are we today so different than those who lived in the first century?  Would there not be those who turned to God in the first century when Mt. Vesuvius exploded and incinerated Pompeii and Herculaneum?  When people of all times who are comfortable and think they don’t need anything, including God, are slapped in the face with their own mortality and helplessness in the face of devastation and destruction, there are some who will turn to God for comfort.  History records that the Roman Empire had more than her fair share of natural calamities, some of which were of such overwhelming magnitude as to leave one numb from the shock and disbelief.  In the studies to come, we will observe many of the natural and self inflicted disasters that befell the Roman Empire along the course of her downward spiral into ultimate defeat and destruction. 

The angel filling the censer with the fire from the alter and casting it upon the earth is a picture of God’s wrath unleashed on the elements of the earth with a twofold purpose.  The primary purpose was to warn everybody in the Roman Empire against evil and to bring them to repentance and the second purpose was to deplete their resources to the point that they would be conquered.  God’s primary purpose has always been the salvation of the lost. 

Revelation 8:6
“And the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.”
In Amos 3:6 and Hosea 5:8, trumpets were used to sound an alarm to warn of approaching danger.   The picture here is that angels were preparing to warn of the retribution and judgment of God on the enemies of righteousness.  The visions of the seven trumpets are reminiscent of the plagues of Egypt, all of which were designed to demonstrate God’s power and bring Pharaoh to repentance.  The Roman Empire made the same mistake Pharaoh did.   If Pharaoh would have let the Israelites go, he would have saved himself and all of Egypt a great deal of misery.  He was given numerous opportunities to do so and failed.  Similarly the Roman Empire was given numerous opportunities to repent and refused and were now going to face God’s wrath for their actions. 

It is key to note that when the first four trumpets were sounded, various parts of the physical world were effected.  Natural disasters are a tremendous drain on the resources of any empire or nation whether it be the Roman Empire or a nation today.  Vast resources are used to try and alleviate the suffering of the effected people and in so doing deplete a nations ability to protect itself from hostile enemies.   It is not going to be possible to match any of these up with specific events in the natural history of the Empire, but there is no doubt the empire suffered more than its share of devastating natural disasters.  Numerous cities were destroyed by earthquakes and some of them were outright incinerated by eruptions.  There was a famine of such magnitude that sufficient food for the population was unavailable.  The hunger of the famine was so severe, people were eating foods which were unhealthy just to survive and this sparked a plague which swept across the empire, lasting over a decade and killing untold millions of people.  History records that entire cities were totally depopulated from this plague.  Interestingly, many centuries after the writing of Revelation, there was an earthquake of such magnitude that it dried up the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the effected area.  An entire mountain was said to have disappeared during this devastating earthquake.  But that wasn’t the end of it.  When the earthquake subsided and the displaced water returned, it came back with a vengeance.  History records that boats were washed as far as 14 miles inland and lodged in trees and upon housetops.  Those who did not die in the earthquake were drowned in the waves of the returning water.   These natural disasters occurred over centuries of Roman history and were key in the decline and ultimate downfall of the Empire. 

It is not going to be possible to match up the following events heralded by the trumpets with actual events in the history of the empire with any degree of certainty.  We are going to have to recognize the fact that God did use natural events to help bring about the punishment and downfall of the empire and not try to pinpoint them to specific disasters.  They were spread out over the empire separated by both geography and time.   God later speaks of the downfall of the empire in the past tense as if it has already happened so we know that the visions revealing the fate of the empire are not depicting it in perfect chronological order.  Later in Revelation we see a vision of the Empire being picked apart by birds, bit by bit, piece by piece, (Revelation 19).  Also we have in the same vision with the birds and earlier in chapter 14 the description of God’s wrath and retribution being pictured like the treading of grapes in a winepress.  The image here is that of a slow, constant, deliberate, methodical pounding out and picking apart of the Empire over a period of time.  History bears out the fact that this is indeed what happened.  A combination of natural disasters and internal depravity and unrest combined to weaken the empire to the point that it was picked apart from within and without, eventually overthrown and finally destroyed. 

Revelation 8:7
“And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.”
The first trumpet sounds and we have God’s retribution in the form of intense weather.  Fire and burned trees and grass are descriptive of a long hot dry spell which depletes the agricultural products for the people and grass necessary to graze livestock.  Long hot dry spells leave a nation in a weakened state and are miserable to have to endure and live through.  The third part of the earth indicates that this was occurring over a vast territory of land but was by no means empire wide. 

Revelation 8:8-9
“And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and there died the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, (even) they that had life; and the third part of the ships was destroyed.”
And when the second angel sounded his trumpet, earthquakes and burning mountains which are picturesque of volcanic eruptions are in mind here.  When these events occur in the seas they can cause devastating tidal waves.  The eruptions are often time accompanied with the release of poisonous or super heated gases which are deadly to life both in and out of the water.  History records that this was indeed the case in the Roman Empire.  We know of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and what it did to Herculaneum and Pompeii.  And this was only one of several which occurred in the empire and was not the worst by any means.  Offshore earthquakes cause monstrous tidal waves which wash ships and fish ashore and we know from history that this happened to the Roman Empire as well. 

Again, the third part of creatures in the sea and the ships destroyed indicate extensive but not total destruction. 

Revelation 8:10-11
“And the third angel sounded, and there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”
A star falling from heaven shows that this retribution was coming from God above. In this judgment scene, the fresh water supply is affected.  During the time of the Roman Empire most fresh water came from springs, rivers or shallow hand dug wells.  They did not have the technology to drill deep wells into fresh water sources and pipe it to all the people.  When something happened to effect the water supply, there was little they could do to alleviate the problem. 

Wormwood in the Old Testament was used to denote judgment, especially in instances of idolatry: “lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from Jehovah our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood” (Deuteronomy 29:18).  Jeremiah prophesied of the judgment of the Israelites for the worshipping of Baalim: “therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink” (Jeremiah 9:15).

The term wormwood symbolizes Calamity, sorrow and bitterness of life.  Now, because of their persecution of the Christians, the Roman empire will taste the bitterness of the wrath of God.  It is not possible to relate this event to anything specific but our own experiences with natural disasters may give some insight on what is happening to the water supply in this vision.  Destructive huge scale natural disasters kill many people leaving few to clean up the aftermath.  Where the seas or oceans are involved, flood waters inundate the effected areas, killing on a massive scale and polluting the fresh water sources with sewage and the dead bodies of both animals and humans.  This polluted water becomes disease ridden, foul smelling and bitter and to drink it without boiling it would be hazardous to the health of anyone or anything drinking it.  People and livestock must have fresh water to survive and when the water supply has been disrupted and all that is available to drink is fouled then life is going to get difficult indeed. 

Revelation 8:12
“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner.”
The moon and the stars represented figures of authority in the minds of the first readers of Revelation.  The Sun mentioned alongside the moon and stars here would put it in the same category.  When a devastating natural calamity occurs the authorities in charge of maintaining law and order are often unable to function properly.  Those without food or necessities and in desperate situations will take from those who have by force.  There is all kinds of looting, stealing and profiteering going on and the people in charge of enforcing law are unable to keep these things in check. 

People are displaced from their homes, millions are dead, food and water is scarce, violence is raging unchecked and where are the soldiers?  Where are the authorities?  Where are the rulers who have governed and kept the peace and provided protection and security from their enemies for so long?  They can’t be seen amid the destruction and people are in despair.  The rulers and kings they had worshipped and trusted for so long can’t help them in the face of God’s wrath.  The times are indeed dim for those suffering the judgment of God.  The powerful Emperors with their glistening armies all bright and shining and proud and the powerful rulers of the provinces in their shining palaces are eclipsed into darkness in the face of the wrath of the real authority in charge; the one true and living God. 

Of importance here is that the judgments announced by the first four trumpets were a call to repentance and not the total destruction of the enemies of God.  They were a selective application of God’s retribution over specific portions of the known world designed to bring the enemies of righteousness to a realization that their emperors, false gods, kings and governors were not the ones in charge and that there was a higher power that demanded their obedience and was intolerant of their persecution of His faithful children.   

Revelation 8:13
“And I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven, saying with a great voice, Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, who are yet to sound.”
The eagle was representative in this vision of a bird of ill omen as seen in Old Testament writings such as Jeremiah 49:22 and Hosea 8:1.  This eagle is proclaiming to those who live on earth and have seen and survived the first four judgments that they haven’t seen the end of it yet and the worst is yet to come.  The first four trumpets symbolized the smiting of the natural world and the consequences thereof, but now they will have far more to worry about than ever before when the last three trumpets are sounded.

Summary Paraphrase

And when Jesus at last prepared to reveal God’s judgment on the world of the ungodly, all of heaven stood silent for a period of time in breathless expectation and awe.  The angels charged with announcing God’s retribution were standing before His throne and were each given a trumpet with which to signal the coming woes. 

Then another angel came and stood over an alter before God’s throne, holding a golden censer in his hands.  And he was given an abundance of incense to burn therein, mingling its fragrance with the cries and prayers of God’s oppressed children coming up from the earth.  And in answer to those prayers,  the angel then filled the censer with the fire of God’s wrath from the alter and cast it upon the world of the wicked and God’s anger was like lightning in the skies and the earth was shaken from the thunderings of His voice.

And all the angels that were going to announce God’s retribution on the enemies of His children prepared themselves to sound.  When the first angel sounded there followed severe weather, violent storms and heat waves so intense that the vegetation and the trees died over great areas of the earth.  When the second angel announced the coming of God’s wrath there were great earthquakes and eruptions which set the mountains on fire and caused massive tidal waves that destroyed many of the inhabitants of the seas along with the ships that sailed on them.  And the third angel sounded, and God’s wrath coming from heaven caused all the rivers and springs of water on the earth to be fouled and bitter.  And many people died from drinking the poisonous bitter water.  And then the fourth angel sounded and the great rulers and leaders of the afflicted people could no longer be seen. 

And then I saw an eagle flying in the air over the earth saying in a great voice, “Woe woe woe, to all the people of the earth because of the terrible things that will happen when the last remaining angels blow their trumpets.”

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Who Will Be Able to Stand? (Revelation 7)

Who Will Be Able to Stand? (Revelation 7)


Chapter 4 opened this vision with a picture of God on His throne and being worshipped by all creation.  Chapter 5 introduced Jesus Christ as the one worthy redeemer, qualified to reveal the will of God and likewise being worshipped.  Chapter 6 is the picture of our redeemer revealing the coming of the redemption and righteousness of God, followed closely by the enemies of it and a step by step progression which brings us to the point at which God’s fearful judgment upon the earth is imminent.

In times past, God’s wrath upon nations such as Sodom and Gomorrah, or in the case of the great flood, the destruction was sudden and total.  But in these examples and many others, we see a period of time given where any who would be righteous had the opportunity to avoid destruction.  The people of Sodom and Gomorrah had an opportunity to be spared if only a handful of righteous could be found.  Noah was a preacher of righteousness all during the time he constructed the ark on which the entire hope of mankind relied (2 Peter 2:5).  It took a hundred years to build the ark and during that time he preached to the masses.  The unrighteous who lived at the time of the great flood had a hundred years to repent. 

We see from a study of the deliverance of the promised land to the Israelites that God would not let the Canaanites be destroyed until after there was no hope of any of them being found righteous.  In Genesis 15:16 and context, we have God speaking to Abraham in a dream where He was giving Abraham certain facts surrounding the land his descendants would inherit: “But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”  Backing up to Genesis 15:13, we see God telling Abraham his descendants would be enslaved for 400 years while this was taking place. The word “Amorite” was used there as a term for the pre-Israelite population of Canaan.  When the Israelites arrived at the Jordan river after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, the Amorites of old were then identified as the Canaanites of the time. 

What we see in Revelation chapter 7 is a parallel of God’s actions toward a people who are about to be destroyed.  God will wait to utterly destroy a nation until there are no more souls among them who can be saved.  God is longsuffering and is not willing that any should perish.  In this we see the tremendous love that God exhibits towards the lost.  Inspiration teaches us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).  We also see that God places a high priority on the souls of the lost.  He left the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years while the Canaanites degraded themselves completely into idolatry.  Only after the Canaanites had utterly abandoned God’s righteousness and there was no more potential for the salvation of souls were they driven out.  If the people of Canaan had been destroyed while there was yet any potential for righteousness, then souls would have been lost that otherwise would have been saved if God would not have destroyed them. 

As evil and idolatrous as the Roman Empire was, there were souls among them that were righteous and there were those who would eventually turn to righteousness before everything was said and done.  The faithful Christians, despite the persecution against them, were spreading the gospel, reaching the lost and helping people find their way out of idolatry and into the truth of God’s righteousness.  We must keep in mind that God has a much broader perspective on things than we do.  We are limited in our knowledge of the here and the now and what has been.  God sees all that plus what will happen in the future.  he knows if someone will respond to the truth tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.  He knows who is going to respond to the opportunity for salvation and He wants them to be saved.  And if God had swept in and utterly destroyed the Roman Empire while there were yet souls who would turn to God, then He would have destroyed their hope for salvation.     

God so loved the world that He sacrificed the fleshly life of His only Son that whosever sought righteousness could have eternal life.  John 3:16 does not limit God’s love to only the saved, but encompasses all of His creation.  He loves the sinners and the saved alike.  And we who are Christians must realize this and realize also that God who was willing to sacrifice the life of His Son, is willing also to sacrifice the lives of His saints to the purpose of the salvation of man.  Saving the eternal souls of the lost is more important in the eternal purpose of God than the fleshly lives of His Son and the saved.

And with that thought in mind, we are going to use that as the backdrop for how we look at the 7th chapter of Revelation.  Yes God is in charge, Yes He will punish and eventually destroy the Roman Empire for all the evil, pain and suffering they inflicted on the Christians, but not until their work on earth was complete and all the souls that could be saved were, “And there was given them to each one a white robe; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little time, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled (their course)” (Revelation 6:11). 

Who will be able to stand against God’s judgment?  “Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13).  While this is a picture of the last day when all of the creation is judged, the answer is still applicable; the righteous will stand in the end.

Revelation 7:1
“After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or upon any tree.”

Here we have the number four used multiple times which was symbolic of the world in which we live.  We see the four corners of the earth, the four winds coming from all directions being overseen by four angels.  This is figurative for the entire world which in the minds of the 1st century readers encompasses all of the Roman Empire and the nations it was unable to conquer such as the Parthians.  The winds are an Old Testament symbol which was a figure of divine retribution.  The winds being held back by the angels was the wrath of God on the enemies of righteousness.  And we have a vivid picture in the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah what can happen when the winds of God’s retribution are released. 

We also notice that God’s wrath is aimed at natural things of the earth.  We learn in later accounts of John’s visions that God used natural calamities to pour out His retribution on the persecutors of the Christians.  History records many devastating earthquakes and other natural disasters which occurred in the first century which can be associated with the Revelation.  For example great earthquakes destroyed several cities in Asia Minor at different times and let’s not forget the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius which utterly obliterated the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the first century.  Dealing with the consequences of these natural disasters seriously depleted the resources of the Roman Empire and were contributing factors to its ultimate downfall.

Revelation 7:2-3
“And I saw another angel ascend from the sunrising, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
The angels who have the power to bring God’s retribution upon the earth are told to wait until the servants of God are sealed.  The word “sealed” is translated from the Greek word  sphragizo (sfrag-id’-zo); which means to stamp (with a signet or private mark) for security or preservation (literally or figuratively).  This is the same word used in John 6:27; “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed“, and in Ephesians 1:13, “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise“.  When any person believes and obeys the gospel, they are said by scripture to be “sealed” or “marked for preservation“.  God’s retribution on the earth was to be postponed until all of God’s servants were marked for preservation.  As we saw in Ephesians 1:13, this sealing occurs at the moment of one’s conversion, so the servants of God who are to be marked for identification include those who who will respond to the gospel and become Christians as well as those who already had. 

Being sealed on the forehead is not to be taken literally.  Paul taught in  2 Timothy 2:19, “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”  All Christian have the assurance that God knows who His children are and that they are in fellowship with God the Father and with Jesus Christ, (1 John 1:3), so it follows to reason that God knows His children on a personal level.  Anyone whom God knows and fellowships is identified for preservation.  Being sealed on the forehead therefore means to be recognized by face on sight.

Revelation 7:4
“And I heard the number of them that were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel”
The number 144,000 is the number 12, which is a symbol for organized religion, multiplied by the number 1000 which is the number 10 multiplied by itself three times.  The number 10 is the number for completeness and the number 3 was symbolic for God.  This brings the number to 12,000.  This number is then multiplied again by 12 which is the number for organized religion which brings it to 144,000.  Another way of expressing this figurative number is “the total sum of all God’s children from all nations.” 

Some religious organizations today try and literalize this number saying this is all that will be in heaven.  They fail to read just a few sentences onward where John sees the same group of people in this same vision, “a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of (all) tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”  One must ask why anyone would literalize the 144,000 and then turn around and ignore the innumerable multitudes of the saved out of every nation of the earth standing before the throne of God.  So often it is the case that Revelation explains itself but one has to look at the whole vision, taking into consideration all of what is happening, not just isolated components of them and then trying to build a doctrine out of it.  The symbolic language in Revelation must be interpreted in light of what the rest of scripture says, not the other way around. 

Revelation 7:5-8
“Of the tribe of Judah (were) sealed twelve thousand: Of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Benjamin (were) sealed twelve thousand.“

Of interest here is that verse 4 closed with the words “sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel”.  The twelve tribes listed are not the complete list of the actual patriarchs of the 12 tribes of old Israel.  Ephraim and Dan are not mentioned.  They were replaced with Levi who did not receive a land inheritance and Joseph, the father of Manasseh and Ephraim who were two of the Patriarchs.  So we can rule out the original tribes of Israel and the original children of Israel as being the subjects of this vision.  The Israel in view here is the spiritual house of Israel, not the old Israel.  the term “house of Israel” occurs in the old testament 146 times in reference to old Israel.  The New Testament Israel is referred to as a spiritual house in 1 Peter 2:5 so we see a contrast between the old Israel and the new.  The Israel in view here in John’s vision is the Israel of the new testament which included all the gentiles.  “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body , whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13).  The “children of Israel” under the new covenant is the body of Christ.  Also known as the kingdom of Christ (Ephesians 5:5, Colossians 1:13), the body of Christ (Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 12:27), and the church of Christ (Romans 16:16).

Revelation 7:9
“After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of (all) tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands”
As soon as John is finished describing the sealing of the children of Israel under the new covenant, the scene switches immediately back to the throne room of God where we get a vision of all the saved of all the ages. 

Keeping in mind this is the answer to the question “who will be able to stand?“, this is a picture of the souls who will be preserved and will be able to stand through God’s retribution on the unrighteous.  The fact that every single one of them came from what was referred to as a “tribe of Israel” indicates that only the children of God will be preserved.  This effectively leaves out everybody else.  

Those who are arrayed in white robes is explained fully in verse 14.  The palms they are holding is an Old Testament symbol taken from the Feast of Tabernacles and represents the joy resulting from deliverance and the peace which comes from assurance of future preservation.

Revelation 7:10
“and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb.”
The persecution of the Christians living under the Roman Empire was horrendous.  They were starved, discriminated against, beaten, enslaved, captured and killed just for being Christians.  It looked like oppression was coming from every conceivable direction and nothing could save them.  The immediate application for them was that there was indeed salvation from the persecution, but only through God’s plan of redemption.  The application for all is that the terms for salvation of all mankind is only through God and the sacrifice of the Lamb, His Son for the sins of all.  The first century Christians were needing saved from their immediate circumstances, but that was secondary in importance to being saved from eternal destruction.  This is the salvation which is of the utmost importance.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).  “And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Revelation 7:11-12
“And all the angels were standing round about the throne, and (about) the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, (be) unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.”
This is another vision of the worship of God in His throne room.  Interestingly, there are seven attributes given to God here in praise.  Likewise in the throne scene in Revelation 5:12, there were seven given by the angels to Jesus as well.  This cannot be a mere coincidence and serves to symbolize the sevenfold perfection of God.  

Revelation 7:13
“And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These that are arrayed in white robes, who are they, and whence came they?”
One of the elders in John’s vision asked him who those in the white robes were and where they came from.  This question was asked so that it would be answered.  This is one of those times when the visions explain themselves.  The forthcoming answer will serve to identify the 144,000 as those who were of the great innumerable multitude clothed in white and standing before the throne of God.  The words used to explain these victorious saints make up some of the most beautiful imagery in all of the Revelation.  This is a wonderful and comforting picture of what awaits not only the 1st century Christians, but all who come through the trials of life and emerge triumphant over the evil influences of sin.

Revelation 7:14
“And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they that come of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
The great tribulation in view here is the persecution of the saints under the Roman Empire.  Those who shall stand are the ones who come through the great persecution, faithful unto death.  The sacrificial blood of Jesus washed away all their sins and they are clothed in righteousness, having their garments without spot, white and free of the darkness of sin. 

Revelation 7:15
“Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them.”
And because they were arrayed in white robes they are envisioned before the throne of God where they serve him constantly.  There is no day and night in heaven as we know it.  This is merely a figure of speech meant to form a picture of perpetual worship to God. 

The tabernacle spread over them by God is an old testament figure of the old tabernacle where the Israelites worshipped before the first temple was built.   The tabernacle was where God dwelt among the Israelites.  Having His tabernacle spread over them would then mean that they are sheltered in the dwelling place of God.  “LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart” (Psalms 15:1-2).  The entire 15th Psalm is a description of who will dwell in the tabernacle of God. 

Revelation 7:16
“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat”
These are pictures of various persecutions under which the Christians were living as described in the fourth seal.  The hunger and the thirst they went through was very real.  Christians were denied the ability to work good jobs and to buy or sell in the Roman Empire.  Hunger was a very common trial for them.  The sun or heat spoken of is probably an illusion to the fact that many of them were burned to death.  History records that Nero would douse Christians in a flammable substance and set them on fire in his garden at night, using their burning bodies as night lights while he drove his chariot among them.  We don’t know this for a certainty but tradition has it that Antipas, God’s faithful martyr was publicly burned to death in the streets of Pergamum.

Revelation 7:17
“for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Jesus described Himself as the “good shepherd” that “giveth His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).  The Psalmist wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd” who leads me “beside the still waters” (Psalm 23).  Jesus is well known in the minds of His children as the lamb and the shepherd who gave His life so that His sheep could live. 

There will be no tears in heaven, God having removed all cause for sorrow.  Consider not only the tears of those who were martyred for Christ, but also the tears of those whose loved ones died leaving them without their fathers, or mothers, or wives or husbands.  Think about the destitute survivors whose husbands and fathers were slain, all their possessions taken, leaving them bereaved, alone and without any means of support.  Think about the families who saw their loved ones torn to shreds by wild beasts in the Coliseum for the entertainment of the Romans.  Think about the families whose fathers were forced to fight the gladiators and die in front of tens of thousands of jeering Romans.  Imagine how hard that would be and imagine the tears of grief and despair.  All of this sorrow will be forever gone for those who overcome and emerge triumphant.  God Himself is pictured here as wiping the tears from the eyes of His children.  What a beautiful and comforting picture this is for any Christian but especially to those who are suffering greatly because of their faith. 

The fountains of the waters of life.  Fountains suggest that the living waters are plentiful and the waters of life is reminiscent of Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman He spoke with at Jacob’s well: “Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

So many times in Revelation, John sees the faithful in the throne room of God.  There are those in the world today who try and use these visions to set forth the teaching that all Christians who have died are presently in heaven.  We must keep in mind that the Revelation is purposefully symbolized for the protection of the first readers who were living during the great persecution of the Roman Empire and therefore the language is obscured.  Biblical teaching elsewhere in scripture places the souls of the faithful dead in a place of paradise within the Hadean realm where they await the coming of Jesus.  The saved thief on the cross joined Jesus in paradise (Luke 23:43) and we know from other scripture that Jesus went to Hades after His death on the cross (Acts 2:27).  Lazarus and the rich man likewise went to Hades upon their deaths (Luke 16:23).  The rich man was in torment while Lazarus was pictured in a place of comfort in Abraham’s bosom.  Inspiration records a conversation between Abraham and the lost rich man.  Nowhere in scripture does it even remotely hint that those in their final destination of Hell will be engaging those in Heaven in conversations.  Hell, (Gehenna), is described in scripture as eternal and total separation from God forever.

In Acts 2:34 we read that “David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand“.  Jesus Christ is the only one who has been resurrected from the Hadean realm and has ascended to Heaven.  The faithful dead have not yet been resurrected and are therefore awaiting this event in the paradise section of the Hadean realm. 

John 5:28-29
“Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.”  This event has not yet occurred therefore nobody but Jesus has ascended to heaven. 

It is often the case in Revelation that events which are to happen in the future are visualized as having already been accomplished.  This is to give the impression of the absolute surety of the event.  Notice later on in John’s visions that an angel declares, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, that hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Revelation 14:8).  The Babylon here is a figure for the Roman Empire and God’s angel declares it’s downfall as having already occurred.  The downfall of the empire is so sure that it is spoken of in past tense terms.  Likewise the gathering of God’s saints about Him in Heaven is so sure that it is spoken of in the same past tense terms.  It is also significant to note within the vision itself that the scene switches from the saints on earth under the persecution immediately to the throne room where they were again pictured in the presence of God while in reality many of the 144,000 were still living on earth, some who were yet to respond to the gospel and come into fellowship with God.

Summary Paraphrase

Revelation 7

And after these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back God’s retribution like the wind so that it would not descend on the earth nor the sea nor on the trees.  And then I saw another angel ascending from the direction of the rising sun with a message from God.  And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels who were commanded to bring God’s judgment upon the earth, saying, “Do no harm to the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until all the faithful servants of our God are saved.”

And I heard the number of God’s children which were redeemed: and there were great multitudes of them from among all the corners of the earth.  From each and every nation of the earth,  both Jews and Gentiles, all of those who would be redeemed were found and saved.  And after this I saw them all again in a vision before the Throne of God and there were so many that no man could number them.  They were standing before the throne of God, with the Father and with Jesus, clothed with righteousness, having been delivered from their persecutors and now at peace. 

And they all cried in unison, “Salvation comes only from God on His throne and from His Son.”  And then all the angels standing round about God’s throne and all the elders and all the redeemed fell on their faces and worshipped God saying “Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Be it so.”

And one of the elders asked me, “Who are these which are clothed in righteousness and from where did they come?” And I answered him, “Sir, you know these things” And then he said to me, “These are they which were faithful unto death through the great persecution, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the sacrificial blood of the Son of God.  And now they are the only ones of earth who will be able to stand and they shall serve God day and night in His temple: and He shall shelter them where He dwells.  They will never again go hungry or thirsty, neither will they ever again suffer under the persecution of the unrighteous.  Because Jesus, the good shepherd who is enthroned at the right hand of God shall make sure they are fed and He will lead them to fountains of the waters of life and God Himself shall wipe all the tears of tribulation from their eyes. 

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