7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 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. 10 They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).
“Horses prepared for battle” tell us that these locusts are ready and prepared for this effort of war against God and man. It is difficult to tell if these are the size of locusts or larger. I assume they are small like locusts. His description is very detailed. The gold crown reference could indicate they have been given some power. The human face reference could indicate they are intelligent and are cunning and following a plan. The hair reference could mean they are attractive or can look attractive or alluring. The lion’s teeth reference could mean they are vicious in their bite when they attack. The iron breastplate reference could mean they are impenetrable, they can’t be crushed. The sound of the wings like thundering horses could mean they are intimidating when they come. The scorpion tail with its sting indicates it is torturous to endure and causes suffering.
We are reminded that they are only allowed five months to torture. We are further instructed that they are under an authority. The Hebrew word Abaddon is derived from a verb that means “to become lost”, “to perish”, or “to destroy, kill”. In Revelation 1:18 and 6:8, it refers to the grave. Job uses the word in 31:12 to imply an unquenchable appetite. If we put these together and apply it to a person, it is a person who has an unquenchable appetite to destroy to the grave, or something like that. Apollyon is the Greek counterpart to Abaddon. It is a proper name that has the connotation of “one who destroys”.
Charles Swindoll said, “As we study John’s vision and observe the armies of darkness battling in the future, we can better understand how similar spirits of wickedness try to torment us today” (Insights, 133). Be aware that you are opposed, as the disciples were, but when the power of God was with them and they walked in the name of Jesus, even the demons were subject to them. This should remind us to be careful in how we walk and to strive to walk in the Spirit of the living God.
12 The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
And as horrific as that has been, we are reminded that there are two more to come.
J. Boyd Nicholson said, “The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is a message – and what a message! It is a living message from the living God for living people, just like us, for people with sins just like us, for people with sorrows and heartaches just like us. It is the only message one the face of the earth with concrete promises and absolute assurances of an eternal inheritance that will withstand the impact of death and the collapse of the universe.” (Uplook, 11)
This is especially true when this destruction comes to earth during this time of these seven trumpets.
13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. 14 It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.
Many commentaries believe that these angels are demons because they are bound. These have been kept for this very purpose and this is their time. They will kill people. Their number is enormous, if we calculate what John writes it is 200 million. One-third of the population has already died in these trumpets. Now another third will die.
17 The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. 18 A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. 19 The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.
The breastplate description of red, blue, and yellow are compensatory to fire, smoke, and brimstone. These troops can kill from the front or behind and they attack. Some writers believe these are demons. Perhaps they are. They could just as well be men in modern equipment that John simply couldn’t describe. I am not sure if there is enough description here to know.
20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.
“They did not repent” and “they did not stop worshipping demons and idols”. They continued murdering, magic arts, sexual immorality and stealing. These may be the saddest word description in the Bible.
Unbelievers often lament for God to do something. Here He has permitted the worst possible things imaginable to take place, yet they do not turn to Him. What people really want is for God to do what they want Him to do. They want Him to approve what they want to be approved. They want what they deem to be good to be what He approves as good. In other words, they want to be God. Even in the midst of all of this devastation and in the unlikely 50-50 chance of surviving, they do not turn to God and submit that He is the only power and the life – that there is no other but Him.
W.A. Criswell, a famous pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas for more than 50 years said, “One of the strangest things about human nature is that man has not changed because of punishment. … He may desist from evil because he is afraid, but his heart is still evil. He would do evil if he could get by with it. A man is really changed only by the Gospel of the grace of the Son of God.” (Sermons, 3:192)
Robert Mounce said, “Once the heart is set in its hostility toward God, not even the scourge of death will lead people to repentance.”
We all have a depraved human heart and it is only God, through His son Jesus, who rescues us.
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