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Trumpet five and six

On the sounding of the fifth trumpet a star that had fallen received the key to the shaft of the Abyss. The star is an angel; fallen, yet remains an instrument for doing God’s will (the key to the Abyss was given by authority from God). The in 20:1–3 is the place into which Satan is thrown and imprisoned. So here the reference to the key indicates that all its inhabitants are firmly under God’s control.

The fifth trumpet: demons are commissioned to torment hardened unbelievers

The fifth angel sounds the trumpet, and John sees another vision of judgment. He sees a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth.

The OT background is Isa. 14:12–15. Jesus uses virtually the same expression to describe Satan’s judgment in Luke 10:18: “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”

In Luke 10:17–20 Jesus identifies Satan as head over the demons and, with them, in the process of being subjected to him and his disciples

There the “angel of the abyss” is called “king over” the demonic locusts and is referred to as “Abaddon” (“Destruction”) and “Apollyon” (“Destroyer”).

This fallen angel is given the role of inflicting punishment on sinful humanity, he represents sinful humanity, and his role is to inflict pain on humanity. He is given the key of the bottomless pit, the realm where Satan dwells, but this key or authority is ultimately given by Christ, who alone holds the keys of death and Hades.

The judgment formerly limited to the demonic realm is being extended to the earthly realm. As a result of Christ’s death and resurrection, the devil and his legions have begun to be judged, and now the effect of their judgment is about to be unleashed upon unbelieving humanity, who give their ultimate allegiance to him.

Demonic-like beings portrayed as locusts arise from the smoking abyss and go out to the earth.

The comparison of these demon hosts to locusts echoes the vision of Joel 2:1–10, where it is said that the locust armies look like war horses running to battle, rattle like chariots, charge like mighty men, darken the heavens, and have fangs like lions.

John declares that the locusts have power to inflict pain like scorpions. Locusts eat vegetation and do no harm to human beings, but these demonic locusts ignore vegetation and attack people, more precisely those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads, they, on the contrary, have the mark of the beast;

The seal was given only to genuine believers as a sign of God’s sovereign authority and ownership over those destined ultimately to be members of his kingdom and not of Satan’s domain.

First, they are not to kill anyone, they are to “torment” people for a limited period, five-months.

These verses present a picture of a horrible judgment ultimately directed by God, who uses Satan and his agents to inflict it.

On the significance of understanding the use of figurative language in the Bible. These verses show us how John uses the picture of horse-like locusts similar to scorpions to refer to the psychological and spiritual torment that Satan and his agents inflict at the command of God.

The Sixth Trumpet:

13And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 one saying to the sixth angel that had the trumpet, Loose the four angels that are bound at the great river Euphrates. 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.

When the sixth trumpet is sounded a voice comes from the golden altar that is before God. It is linked with the cries of the martyrs beneath the altar in heaven (6:9–10) and the prayers of the saints on earth for deliverance .
01The four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates are to be released.

This river and the Nile formed the ideal limits of the land promised to Israel (Gen. 15:18). It also formed the eastern limit of the Roman Empire, and beyond it lay the Persian Empire, the only military power in the world which had decisively defeated Roman armies and which Rome had cause to fear.

The four angels command no human army but a terrifying demonic force, invading not the promised land but the godless world. The precise moment of this invasion is fixed. The number of the mounted troops is given as two hundred million.

This could be a parallel between 7:1 and 9:14 in identifying “the four winds of the earth” held back in 7:1 with the four angels bound at the Euphrates.

The destructive winds “at the four corners of the earth” may now be unleashed against the unsealed once God’s people have been sealed so that they cannot be harmed by the effect of the angelic winds (7:3–8). That the four angels of 9:14 are at the Euphrates and not at the four corners of the earth is a mixing of metaphors:

The four angels have power over ungodly spiritual forces, which are portrayed as a multitude of armies on horses. They carry out their mandate to “kill” by means of these forces.

The plague fails to produce a positive effect on the God-opposing world; people persist in idolatry, with its attendant evils, and find no place of repentance.

Fire, smoke, and sulphur are now called “three plagues” from which “a third of humans died”

Whereas the locusts are “not permitted to kill,” the horses from beyond the Euphrates are permitted to kill. They kill the whole person, both physically and spiritually.

The demons are commissioned to judge hardened unbelievers by ensuring the final punishment of some through deception until death, leaving the deceived remainder unrepentant (9:13–21)

The strongest OT echo comes from Jeremiah 46, which portrays the coming judgment on Egypt, the army of horsemen from the north being like serpents, innumerable locusts, having breastplates ( 46:4, 22–23), and being “by the Euphrates River” (46:2; likewise 46:6, 10). The angels had been bound by God and are now released by Him

Mention of the Euphrates anticipates the battle of the sixth bowl, where the Euphrates is also mentioned. Indeed, the sixth trumpet and sixth bowl describe the same event, but from different perspectives;

John’s vision understands the Euphrates as a biblical reference for the place (spiritual rather than geographical) where Satan will marshal his forces against God’s people.

with the description of the locusts in the fifth trumpet, the piling up of hideous descriptions underscores the demons as ferocious and dreadful beings.

The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah from Gen. 19:24, 28 is uppermost in thought among other possible parallels, since the precise combination of fire, smoke, and brimstone occurs in the OT only there. The fire and the smoke and the brimstone are now called three plagues from which a third of mankind was killed.

They carry out, not the final judgment, but a judgment that is linked to the final judgment and that prepares for it. They cause the physical death of idolaters, compromisers, and persecutors of the church, who are already spiritually dead.

The deceptive facet of the sixth trumpet is implied by its unique parallels with the sixth bowl. especially with respect to a judgment of deception “coming out of the mouth” of Satanic beings (16:13, where three evil spirits come out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet).

Part of the effect of the demons’ mouths in 9:17–19 is to intensify the deception of unbelievers.

This reinforces the link of the horses to Satan himself, who is known in Revelation as “the serpent” (12:9, 14–15; 20:2). John understood that the sufferings he was narrating were already occurring, and were not to be limited to a period only immediately preceding the Lord’s return.

Jesus called the Pharisees serpents and vipers because they were blind guides leading others astray (Matt. 23:16, 33). The sting of the serpent, as represented by the smoke of 9:2–3, comes first in the form of deception.

This deception leads unbelievers on to the final effect of the sting—God’s final judgment.

Reflections ON 9:13–21

The seriousness of deception. These verses present a picture of ferocious creatures representing demonic spirits who bring torment on unbelievers. A careful examination of the picture shows that the actual form in which these creatures confront people is often that of human false teachers (inside and outside the visible church), who promote worship of anything other than the true God.

How seriously do we take the threat of false teaching?

Do we see it as a disagreeable but merely human phenomenon, or as something empowered by powerful demonic spirits?

How do we respond to such threats? Do we always unswervingly go to God’s Word for protection, since it is the only source of truth against such threats?

Elsewhere John says, “You are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one” (1 John 2:14

The nature of idolatry

These verses present a picture of idolatry largely in line with that of the OT: the worship of idols of gold, silver, and other materials.

The larger context of Revelation, which speaks of the destruction of all created things, shows that these human materials stand for anything that is not God, that is, worship of the creation rather than the Creator.

What forms of idolatry exist in our society?

Gold, sports, careers, leisure activities, or the acquiring of money and material possessions

Whatever we are committed to more than God is an idol, including worship of ourselves.

Even as ch. 7 shows that Christians are sealed against the spiritually destructive harm of the six trumpet judgments, so 11:1–13 reveals that they are sealed so as to bear an enduring and loyal witness to the gospel, which begins to lay a basis for the final judgment of those rejecting their testimony.

This vision explains the theological basis for the judgment on the wicked in the first six trumpets. Non-Christians are punished by the trumpet judgments throughout the church age because they have persecuted believers.