In March of 2020 hundreds of billions of locusts swarmed through parts of East Africa and South Asia in the worst infestation in 3/4 quarters of a century. The worst locust plague in modern times struck the Middle East in 1951 and 1952 in Iran, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and they tell us every green and growing thing was devoured across hundreds of thousands of square miles. And they ate it right down to the bare ground.

Locusts descend to the earth in such thick masses that they can literally make it look like night in the middle of day. They can blot out the sky. But as bad as that is with real insects, these are not real insects. Five months is all they have to torment; that is interesting. Five months is the normal life of a locust. They live from May to September. They devastate land in minutes.

Scorpions can have powerful and painful stingers. The Bible speaks about a day coming when the power of the scorpion will be an attribute of the dreadful locust out of the abyss. There is a generation that will witness the most dreadful, horrific locust unlike anything man has ever seen. I want to summarize a bit from our last message of chapter 8 several weeks ago…

Last time we looked at the first two trumpets in chapter 8 verses 1 to 9, you recall that the first trumpet was a judgment on the land. The second trumpet was judgment on the sea. The judgment on the land was horrific and destroyed a third of the trees and shrubs and all of the green grass. The judgment on the sea was some huge mass that was cast into the waters and devastated the sea, killing a third of marine life and destroying a third of the ships. Now we continue with the third trumpet judgment casting it’s indication on the fresh waters of the world as…

I. The Third Angel Sounded:

1. A great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch. The name of the star is Wormwood. This is some kind of a celestial body, the word star in Greek is aster from which we get the word asteroid. It is falling out of heaven, so we are sure of it origin unlike the second trumpet burning like a torch…it could be a comet with a flame following. Now, Wormwood is a botanical herb commonly known for its bitterness. Here wormwood refers to something bitter, some poison that is actually deadly. Wormwood is literally in Greek, the word apsinthon (up seen thee aon), it is the deadly liquor substance called absinth. Whatever this poison is, it is lethal and a third of the waters became contaminate by wormwood and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter.

2. Some believe Apophis an asteroid headed toward earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, could be the apocalyptic star “Wormwood” mentioned in Revelation. NASA is not coming forth about this asteroid and mathematicians and scientists say that NASA is off by 600,000 miles and this asteroid will hit the earth. Mathematician Harry Leer has beseech POTUS to have NASA researchers reviewed the data because they are wrong. Nathan Myhrvold, formerly head scientist at Microsoft, wrote a peer reviewed paper saying Apophis will hit earth and NASA is intentionally deceiving us. Since this data NASA developed DART, this mission employed an asteroid-deflection technique known as a “kinetic impactor,” which was smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid moving it off its course.

Interesting that in Egyptian mythology, Apophis is the deadly demon serpent of darkness whom Ra, the sun god, destroys every morning. Apophis is also known as an enemy of order, truth & light. Could this asteroid also bring on the darkness that follows when…

II. The Fourth Angel Sounded:

1. The celestial bodies are affected. A third of the daylight did not shine, and likewise the night. The text tells us that the angel “strikes” the sun, moon, and stars and dims their output by 1/3. This is caused by God so that one-third of the day and night are plunged into absolute darkness. The word darken in Greek is sko-tē’-zō meaning to cover with darkness a haze or silt clouds from all the fallout. Jesus did say…

Luke 21:25-26 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

2. When Mt. Saint Helen erupted on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. within 15 to 20 seconds the 5.1 magnitude earthquake caused a huge landslide – the largest on Earth in recorded history. The lateral blast of hot material accelerated to at least 300 miles per hour and produced a column of ash and gas that rose more than 15 miles into the atmosphere in only 15 minutes. Over the course of the day, prevailing winds blew 520 million tons of ash eastward across the United States and caused complete darkness in Spokane, Washington, 250 miles from the volcano. Could God cause great prevailing winds to blow an ash cloud cause by an asteroid or a volcano?

3. We have experience local events similar to this. On April 4, 2010 in an unprecedented emergency all flights to and from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and western Scandinavia were grounded -by a gigantic cloud of ash drifting south eastward from the Iceland volcano eruption.

III. The Fifth Trumpet & the Fallen Star – Revelation 9:1-2

1. We need to notice that in verse 1 the word “star” (Greek. Ester) is not being used literally but figuratively. You will notice this “star” is given the key to the shaft of the Abyss and in verse 2 is referred to as “he”. We have already seen 2 stars that are possibly meteors fallen from heaven and have destroyed the vegetation and the rivers and streams. This star seems to be a different kind of star because it is called “him” and acts with intelligence. This star not only acts with intelligence, but he is given a key that he uses to unlock this evil pit.

2. There are several times in Scripture that the word stars refer to angels. Look with me at Job 38:7, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Sons of God refer to angels.

3. In Revelation 9:1 we find that this “star fell” from Heaven. The original Greek wording is “fallen” (to descend from a higher place to a lower) and is past tense. It is speaking of a masculine personal pronoun and is in the perfect tense, denoting completed action in the past. This “star fallen” is none other than Satan himself, “Lucifer” -“daystar”. Reference to this is noted in vv. 9:11 his name Abaddon in Hebrew means “destruction” and Apollyon in Greek is “destroyer”. Both of these names describe Satan as Jesus did in John 8:44. Also, look at this passage and it will be very clear to you in Isaiah – Chapter 14:12-13.

The “bottomless pit” is not Hell or Hades it is literally the pit of the abyss. It is mentioned 7 times in the book of Revelation. Scripture teaches that God has in his sovereignty chosen to incarcerate certain angels in this Abyss. These are undoubtedly the most wicked, vile and perverted of all the fallen angels. One writer says, quote: “Picture what the world would be like if we were to open the doors of all the penitentiaries of earth and set free the worlds’ most vicious and violent criminals, giving them full reign to practice their abominations upon mankind. I think we are experiencing a sense of this today with criminals release without bail, the mentally ill walking the streets, the criminals release from several 3rd world countries through our open borders. Something worse is coming it lies in store for the world.

4. Jude describes them as not keeping their positions of authority and estate but abandoned their habitation meaning their original dwelling place of the body as a dwelling place for the spirit. These God has kept in darkness bound with everlasting chains for judgment. Possibly these are the angels of Genesis 6 the angels who violated the laws of God and “co-habit” with the “daughters of men” in verses 2-7. These are the fallen angels referred to as “the sons of God”. Their offspring were the Nephilim the giants. It is important to note that there are two types of fallen angels in Scripture…

IV The Creatures from the Abyss – Revelation 9:3-5

1. Satan was given the keys to the bottomless pit, he does not possess them but rather it was given to him by Christ who has all authority as reference in Matthew 28:18. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

2. The Abyss is opened in verse 2 and subterranean smoke fills the earth’s atmosphere. There is so much smoke that it will create “smog like” conditions so much so that the sun is dimmed once again. We know some things about natural locust.

3. Out of this smog comes a swarm of dreadful locust and scorpion- like creatures? They are locusts unlike anything ever seen. These “locusts” have been imprisoned for centuries and are prepared for battle. They have the power of a scorpion but hundreds of times larger and more venomous.

They will be shaped like locust, likened unto horses that have faces like men, hair like women, and teeth as lions. These creatures have breastplates of iron and their wings are as “the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle”. They also possess stings in their tails like scorpions.

V. The Torment of – Revelation 9:5-10

1. God has reserve them for the Day of Judgment in Jude 6, 7. These release spiritual beings become some sort of mutant locust and given power to smite their own evil cohorts. Remember angels can appear in various form even ministers of light. Locust in the Bible attacked vegetation such as in the eighth plague on Egypt these are given instruction not to hurt anything green but to attack mankind with the exception of the sealed of God.

2. Notice their target is anyone that is not God’s! In Revelation 9:4 we are told that the creatures were instructed to only sting those that did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. This means that just like the plagues in Egypt, God’s people are not harmed during this judgment.

a) Scorpion, the common name for insect having a flat, narrow body, two lobster-like claws, eight legs, and a segmented abdominal tail. Terminating in a venomous stinger supplied by a pair of poison glands, the tail is usually curved upward and forward over the back. When capturing a victim with its claws, the scorpion inflicts a disabling sting with its tail. In most species the sting is painful, it delivers a disabling sting, but not fatal, to humans, although the sting of one species found in the United States has proved fatal to young children and is potentially fatal to adults.

Research proves that when someone is stung by a scorpion and gets the full blast of their poison, they will roll on the ground in agony, foam at the mouth and grind their teeth in pain.

3. These creatures will not kill those who they sting. The sting will torment them for five months. The torment and pain is so great and excruciating that they will wish they were dead. People will want to die but will not be able to! Possible the reason they will not die is so that this will get their attention and they will submit to Jesus Christ as Savior.

Conclusion:

For many millennia’s the heavens have declared the glory of God and has shown forth His handiwork. And now the heavens are declaring His wrath. When you come to the end of those first five trumpets you wonder how the earth could ever survive.
Ezekiel 33:11 says, “God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” I suppose that’s why there are over six hundred warnings in Scripture about hell. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He is always eager to warn the lost about judgment to come. God will not force His changes upon us; neither can we bring about lasting change in our lives apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.