Grace Thru Faith
The first cycle of judgments is ending. The 144,000 have been commissioned and a huge group of martyrs has arrived in Heaven. In many places on Earth war rages unchecked, with its attendant famine and pestilence, and yet in other places peace still prevails. Those lucky enough to enjoy it are fooled into thinking that soon the rest of the world will settle down too, and it’ll be business as usual. Since the anti-Christ has not yet been revealed as Satan’s man for Planet Earth, many still see him as a talented world leader doing his best to restore order, and despite the unprecedented death tolls and all the missing people, they still give him high ratings.
Revelation 8
But in Heaven it’s a different story, because God is about to unleash the 7 Trumpet judgments. It gives Him no pleasure to do this. But as bad as they were, the now concluding Seal Judgments simply weren’t severe enough to turn man’s stubborn heart back to Him. Alas, He knew it all along, but that doesn’t make matters any easier. If only He didn’t love them so much, He could just let them destroy each other. But while His righteousness demands justice, His love requires that He keep on trying to save them.
The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.
Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. (Rev. 8:1-5)
The half hour of silence fills Heaven with a sense of foreboding, as if all the angels are holding their breath, waiting for the Lord to act. The post-Rapture believers on Earth know what’s coming too, and their urgent prayers come up before the Throne in a giant cloud of incense...
Revelation 9
The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. (Rev. 9:1-2)
This star had fallen some time previous to the 5th angel’s trumpet, and by using a personal pronoun, John identifies him as a living being, most likely a supernatural one. Whoever he is he’s been told to open the shaft of the Abyss to release a swarm of “locusts.”
And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon. (Rev 9:3-11)
These locusts are unlike any such creatures ever seen on Earth before. Normal locusts are vegetarian, but these creatures are prevented from eating the grass, plants, or trees. Instead they attack people, and when they do they sting them like a scorpion would, causing pain so intense that their victims will pray for death. It’s been said that the sting from a small scorpion compares to hitting your thumb with a hammer at full force, but a sting from a large one is like a nail being driven through your thumb. The sting from these locusts is like nothing man has ever experienced. And their leader is the angel of the Abyss, whose name means “Destroyer” in both languages. (In one of those precious little tidbits of wisdom that God’s word is noted for, Proverbs 30:27 informs us that normal locusts have no king lending credence to the idea that these “locusts” are something else.) Only the 144,000 witnesses will be protected from this excruciating pain...
Blessings,
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