The locusts had a king over them--the angel of the bottomless pit,
whose name in Hebrew is 'Abaddon,'
while in the Greek he is called 'Apollyon.'
Revelation 9:11
Berean Standard Bible
[source: BibleHub.com]
The Fifth Trumpet
1 Then the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and it was given the key to the pit of the Abyss. 2 The star opened the pit of the Abyss, and smoke rose out of it like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit.
3 And out of the smoke, locusts descended on the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 The locusts were not given power to kill them, but only to torment them for five months, and their torment was like the stinging of a scorpion. 6 In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will escape them.
7 And the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle, with something like crowns of gold on their heads, and faces like the faces of men. 8 They had hair like that of women, and teeth like those of lions. 9 They also had thoraxes like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the roar of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10 They had tails with stingers like scorpions, which had the power to injure people for five months. 11 They were ruled by a king, the angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon,a and in Greek it is Apollyon.
12 The first woe has passed. Behold, two woes are still to follow.
The Sixth Trumpet
13 Then the sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God 14 saying to the sixth angel with the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
15 So the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 And the number of mounted troops was two hundred million; I heard their number.
17 Now the horses and riders in my vision looked like this: The riders had breastplates the colors of fire, sapphire, and sulfur. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceeded fire, smoke, and sulfur. 18 A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that proceeded from their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; indeed, their tails were like snakes, having heads with which to inflict harm.
20 Now the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the works of their hands. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Furthermore, they did not repent of their murder, sorcery, sexual immorality, and theft.
Footnotes:
11 a Abaddon means Destruction.
11 b Apollyon means Destroyer.
[source: BibleRef.com]
Demons, as fallen angels, are presumed to have ranks in the same way as loyal angels. Satan, sometimes referred to as Lucifer, once held a position near God's throne. But he tried to usurp God's throne and consequently lost his privileged position. Since his rebellion, he has been called "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2). In Revelation 9:11 we learn about another high-ranking fallen angel. He is called Abaddon in Hebrew, literally meaning "destruction" and Apollyon in Greek, literally meaning "one who destroys." Both names can be summarized as meaning destroyer. He is "the angel of the bottomless pit" and is king of the demonic locusts. Perhaps his human counterpart is the king of the North who leads the invasion into Israel in the middle of the tribulation and leaves a trail of destruction in his path (Daniel 8:23–25).
Satan and Abaddon and all their demons are on a mission to destroy humanity. How different they are from our Lord who came into the world to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10)!
[source: GotQuestions.org]
ANSWER: “Bottomless pit” is one word in the Greek of the New Testament and is literally the “abyss,” which means “bottomless, unbounded, the pit, or the immeasurable depth.” Roman mythology featured a similar place called Orcus, a very deep gulf or chasm in the lowest parts of the earth used as the common receptacle of the dead and, especially, as the abode of demons. The bottomless pit of Revelation 9:1-12 holds a unique type of demon. It is also the home of the beast who makes war against the two witnesses (Revelation 11:7-8). At the beginning of the millennial kingdom, the bottomless pit is the place where Satan is bound (Revelation 20:1-3). At the end of the thousand years, Satan is released and promptly leads an unsuccessful revolt against God (Revelation 20:7-10).
The bottomless pit may be associated with a place called Tartarus. This Greek word is translated as “hell” and is used only once in Scripture, in 2 Peter 2:4. It refers to the place where “angels who sinned” are reserved in chains of darkness for judgment. The NIV says these angels in Tartarus are held in “gloomy dungeons.” These same angels are also mentioned in Jude 6 as the angels who “abandoned their own home” (cf. Genesis 6:2).
If Tartarus is the same as the Abyss, then the inhabitants of the bottomless pit are the same angels who sinned and left their first habitation. God uses the bottomless pit as a holding place for the most evil of angels, including Satan himself and those who tried and failed before the Flood to thwart God’s plan to bring the Seed of the woman into the world (Genesis 3:15). The inhabitants of the Abyss are released for a very short time during the last three and a half years of the tribulation to fulfill God’s purpose, namely, to torment the wicked (Revelation 9:5). These prisoners of the bottomless pit hate humanity and seek to destroy them, but God controls their terror and limits their power.
written by C. Philip Green
[source: SermonCentral.com]
Summary: Be aware of Satan’s tactics; but don’t be afraid, because our Heavenly Father protects those who are His.
Neil Anderson and Steve Russo, in their groundbreaking book, The Seduction of our Children, reported that in a survey of hundreds of Christian teenagers, more than 50% of those who had entertained these spirit guides also had impulsive thoughts to kill someone. (pp.39,44)
What seemed so “right” and “good” was absolutely deadly! So it is with many occult practices – including Yoga exercises, the use of tarot cards, the practice of fortune telling and palm reading, or playing with an Ouija board. These things are masqueraded as “stress reducers” or “harmless parlor games”, but they are pathways by which Satan and his demons gain control of people’s lives. The Bible warns us of these things on numerous occasions, and there is coming a day when the whole world will realize just how hideous and destructive these satanic practices really are.
After the church is taken out of this world, Satan’s forces will be unleashed as never before, and they will be unmasked for what they really are. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Revelation 9, Revelation 9, where we catch a glimpse of those hideous forces.
Revelation 9:1 And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. (ESV)
Notice, this star is already “fallen” from heaven. The tense of the verb indicates something that happened in the past with continuing results. In other words, this “star” fell at some time in the past with the result that it remains in a fallen state.
Well, students of the Bible recognize this star as none other than Satan himself. Isaiah 14 calls him a “day star” or Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12). Then it goes on to describe his fall from heaven. You see, Satan used to be the highest archangel in heaven; but then he wanted to take God’s place himself, so God kicked Lucifer out.
He fell to this earth, and his first act as Satan was to convince Adam and Eve that they could be a god like he wanted to be. “You will be like God,” he said, when you eat the forbidden fruit; and it’s the lie he has been telling us ever since.
Today, people tell us, “You are full of potential. All you need to do is actualize the potential within and you will succeed.” But that’s not what the Bible says. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). We are totally dependent upon God, and yet Satan would have us believe we can be gods ourselves.
Satan has indeed fallen to this earth, but during the tribulation, when the 5th angel sounds his trumpet, Satan will be given the key to the bottomless pit. Now, this pit is nothing less than a maximum security prison for Satan’s worst demons.
You see, according to Revelation 12:4, when Satan fell out of heaven, he brought a third of the angels with him. These are “fallen angels” or “demons,” as we sometimes call them. Well, the worst of these demons have been incarcerated in the “pit” since the early days of earth’s history. 2 Peter 2:4 says, “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell (literally a pit) and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.”
It’s a terrible place, even for demons. In Luke 8:31, when Jesus was casting the legion of demons out of a man, they begged Jesus not to send them into the bottomless pit. It’s the same pit in which Satan himself will be bound during the reign of Christ on this earth (Revelation 20:1-3). Right now, it holds Satan’s worst demons, but when the 5th angel sounds his trumpet during the tribulation, Satan is given the key to this pit, and…
Revelation 9:2-3 He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. (ESV)
Now, these are not natural locusts. They are demonic hordes loosed upon the earth. Satan’s forces are unleashed, and they invade the planet like a vast locust plague.
It is 1,000 times worse than opening up the maximum security, federal prison at Leavenworth and unleashing all the rapists and killers to wreck havoc on society. These demonic hordes are described as “locusts,” because they remind us of the locust plagues in the Old Testament.
When God sent the 8th plague on Egypt, the Bible says, “The LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt” (Exodus 10:13-15).
This is a picture of absolute devastation, and that’s exactly what happens when Satan’s forces are unleashed. Only, instead of hurting the trees and the grass, they will hurt men and women.
Revelation 9:4-6 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. (ESV)
The believers are protected from this demonic invasion, those who have God’s seal, but everybody else will be tortured for five months. In fact, they will hurt so bad, they will want to die. My friends, that’s the nature of demonic activity, so…
BEWARE!
Watch out!
Witchcraft promises you power over nature and over people, but in the end it takes away your power; it takes away your ability to make choices for yourself. During the Tribulation, people won’t even be able to choose their own death, though they want it so badly at the time. What may seem like “harmless fun,” what may seem to give you power, will only torment you in the end.
God protects them from these hideous demons, and He protects those of us who trust Christ today. Ephesians 1 says God seals every believer with the Holy Spirit. So if the “sealed” are protected THEN during the Tribulation, they are certainly protected NOW from Satan’s assaults.
It’s the very thing Jesus prayed for in John 17. As he prays for His followers, He says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). It’s a prayer that God gladly answers in any age.
Let me tell you: That power is available to anyone who depends on Christ. All you have to do is shout out the name of Jesus, and Satan’s forces flee. I’ve done it several times throughout my life and ministry and experienced the same kind of results Pastor Lee did.
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