REVELATION 9
When the fifth angel sounded, John “saw a star out of the heaven fallen to the earth; and there was given to it the key of the pit of the abyss. And it opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace”. Here we get another star fallen, and it lets loose upon men influences even more terrible than the star Wormwood. For in this case they emanate directly from the pit. It is something far deeper than the embitterment of class feelings and antagonisms; these are, in a sense, natural to men. But the locusts which come out of the smoke of the pit are supernatural tormentors who bring such misery upon men that they seek death, but “shall in no way find it; and shall desire to die, and death flees from them”. These are spiritual powers of evil coming from the abyss. God allows the power of Satan which has at first been received and welcomed by men, to become their scourge. It [p. 118] is so with all evil teaching. There is something fascinating about all false doctrine. To the natural mind it seems to be more powerful and attractive than the truth. This is conveyed in the locusts being “like to horses prepared for war; and upon their heads as crowns like gold, and their faces as faces of men; and they had hair as women’s hair, and their teeth were as of lions, and they had breastplates as breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to war”. All is impressive, attractive, and overwhelming in its apparent power of conviction. Men who have turned away from the truth eagerly accept it, and prefer it to the gospel, but when received it becomes a scourge — darkness in the heart and terrible oppression in the conscience. “They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and their power was in their tails to hurt men five months”. It is not the first appearance that torments men, but the after part. One has known of terrible instances of people who have adopted teachings which had their origin in the pit, and who have come into an agony of remorse which could not be relieved. Persons have told me they would give anything to get rid of teachings which they had imbibed, but which had now become agony to them. I think this is a foreshadowing of what will be general in a more terrible way when the fifth angel sounds. All the things that men are playing with today — Theosophy, Spiritualism, Christian Science, Astrology, the Occult in many forms, the superstitions of the heathen world — will exact a terrible penalty when God allows them under Apollyon to become retributive. The king of these locusts is “the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew, Abaddon, and in Greek he has for name, Apollyon”. Both speak of him as the destroyer. The name being given in both Hebrew and Greek would seem to suggest a warning to Hebrews as well as Gentiles, and the suitability of this appears when we see that the trumpets bring Palestine and Jerusalem into prophetic view again, as we shall see in the next two chapters.
It is blessed to see that the men with the seal of God on their foreheads escape this fearful infliction (verse 4). They will be sustained by the intercession of Christ at the golden altar, and their prayers will go out of His hand before God with much fragrant incense. Every one of them will know something of the value of the blood of the Lamb, God and the Lamb will be their salvation, and they will know — from this book, if not otherwise — that Christ appears before the face of God for them. What is of Apollyon will be kept out of their souls because what is of God is cherished there. They will know something of what the smoke of the incense means that is going up with their prayers out of the hand of Christ before God. It will tell them of all His fragrant perfections as before God for them, and in the light of this what comes out of the smoke of the pit will have no attractions for them, and therefore its sting will never torment them. And this is true, in principle, of saints today. If we have an imprint on our souls, by divine grace, of Christ, and of the features of the coming day of glory to be ushered in by His rising as the Sun of righteousness, we shall neither be impressed nor attracted by what comes from beneath. It can only deceive those who have nothing better by which to measure its value.
We must remember that all this is judicial. Many things which are the sad evidence of man’s depravity,
and of Satan’s power over him, are in themselves judicial. They are really judgments from God upon a state of heart which does not honour Him. Such a thing as Mahometanism, coming in on countries where Christian light has been, is really a judgment from God. Superstitions which bring men’s consciences into bondage to what is evil, and oppress their hearts, are often of this nature. Such things as materialism on the one hand, or spiritualism on the other, come in where men have turned from divine light. If people turn from Christ, who is the Truth, it need not be wondered at if they are found wandering in a labyrinth of error in which they weary themselves in heart and mind. The materialist of yesterday is today the disciple of weird mysticism, tomorrow he will be deceived by the antichrist, and will worship the beast.
Though Satan’s power will be in these inflictions, and the state of man’s heart and will exposed by them, they are the judicial acting of God. Hence all is measured and limited; it is all under control, and cannot break its bounds. Whether it be the scope of the inflictions — “the third part”; or the duration of these special torments — the twice — repeated “five months”; all speaks of a sovereign power that, while it makes use of what is evil in its inflictions, holds everything under its own control. What a sense it gives us of the absolute supremacy of God!
When the sixth angel sounds his trumpet, a voice speaks “from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God”. It is an answer to the prayers which have been presented there by the Angel Priest. The saints on earth have understood that the time has come in the ways of God for the eastern question [p. 121] to be finally settled by the fulfilment of the prophetic word in regard to Immanuel’s land and the city of the Great King. Their exercises will be like those of Daniel in the ninth chapter of his prophecy, where he says, “I Daniel understood by the books”, etc. I have no doubt they will understand “by the books”; they will have Daniel and the Revelation; they will know where they stand in the seventy weeks, and that the time is at hand; that the mystery of God is just about to be completed. With deep humbling and confession they will own their sin, but will cry, “Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord hearken and do! defer not, for thine own sake, O my God! for thy city and thy people are called by thy name”.
The fact that the voice speaks from the horns of the golden altar suggests that it is in answer to the prayers of saints that “the four angels which are bound at the great river Euphrates” are loosed. The mention of the river Euphrates is a geographical index; it shews that the eastern world comes into view as the source of divine judgment; perhaps as the subject of it also. Under the sixth seal men are represented as using language which seems to suggest Christian knowledge, for they speak not only of Him that sits upon the throne, but of the Lamb. But the sounding of the sixth trumpet brings the east into view, and the things mentioned in chapter 9: 20 - 21 are such as would be found in the heathen world, as well as in corrupt Christendom. The heathen world is apostate from God, and will be judged as such. The whole population of the world stood round Noah’s altar in Genesis 8 with a knowledge of the true God, and the fact that idolatry soon came in proves that “knowing God, they glorified him not as God ... [p. 122] they did not think good to have God in their knowledge” (Romans 1: 21 - 32). “In the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God ... there shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress, on every soul of man that works evil” (Romans 2: 5, 9). The heathen will be subjects of judgement in that day as well as those who have been in outward relation with God.
The infliction in this case is a host of two hundred million horsemen. The number of them is emphasized; “I heard their number”. It is a vast number of agencies connected with four angels “who are prepared for the hour and day and month and year, that they might slay the third part of men”.