Last Sunday, we were talking about the locusts. Over the course of this past week, I think that some people are a little confused. Even though more and more people are seeing this, some do not really understand all that clearly exactly who the locusts represent; and so I would just like to slow down and to think about this a little bit more.
For instance, why did we go to Revelation 9 and take a look at the locusts? Well, several weeks ago, we first went to Acts 16. I would like to read this. I do not think that we can read this enough.
In Acts 16, there is an historical account of Paul and Silas who are placed in prison; and it says in Acts 16:25-29:
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,
This continues on a little bit more, but we came here because of the two words that are translated “great earthquake.” These are the same two words that we find in Revelation 6:12. Also in Revelation 16, it speaks of a great earthquake and says, “such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”
So here in Acts 16, we find a great earthquake that does not ruin a city. It does not even destroy the prison; because, apparently, there was no damage and no concern by the magistrates. The next day, they went to send Paul and Silas home. When Paul mentioned that he was a Roman citizen and that they had been beaten uncondemned, he said to them, “Let them come themselves and fetch us out,” and they came. This was not something that was done to Roman citizens, because this was an affront to Rome itself; and so they were probably afraid. They probably very kindly and politely asked them to please leave the city.
But there was no indication that there was damage from an earthquake, that the city was in rubbles at all. They probably would not have even remembered Paul and Silas if there had been a great earthquake, like the earthquakes that we have seen damage cities recently. They would not have concerned themselves with two strangers who are in a prison. Their concern would have been more for the people who lived there.
So this great earthquake only did one thing, and this was an incredible one thing. It opened up the prison doors and it loosed all of their bands, their stocks, their fetters, their shackles, whatever we want to call them. They were all unshackled and they were all freed. The doors were opened; and since the doors were opened, the prison guard thought that all of the prisoners would certainly be gone, but Paul told him, “We are all here.”
We began to follow this because there are certain elements in this historical account that have to do with and relate to May 21. First of all, it was at midnight or approaching midnight, and midnight in the Bible relates to Judgment Day. You can look at Exodus 12 to see what happened in Egypt at midnight.
We also see that Paul and Silas were in the prison singing God’s praises and all of the prisoners heard them; not most, not a majority, all of the prisoners. This is important because Christ told us that this Gospel of the Kingdom “shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” And even though this was only one local prison in Philippi, this is how God works. He is using this prison as a picture of mankind who is in spiritual prison to their sins and to Satan; and so God is indicating that there would come a great earthquake and that it would open up all of the prison doors.
This also means that these prisoners could have just left. Actually, this is probably true of many people right now, spiritually, who do not know that their prison door has been opened. They are no longer in bondage to sin and to Satan, and so they can just stop sinning, by God’s grace.
Let us say that there is someone who for 40 years has smoked cigarettes every day. Well, have they tried to quit recently? If they are one of God’s elect, He might have set them free; and free, not just from those outward habits, but free from captivity to sin and to Satan.
So from this point, we realized something about May 21. We had been thinking all along that May 21 was the day that the door shut. We kept warning people, “The door will shut; the door will shut; the door will shut. There will be no more salvation.” We did this because this was the significance of the 17th day of the 2nd month. The door would shut to Heaven, and yet we did not think of the flipside of this.
The flipside of this was the opening of the door to the dungeon, to the captives, to those who were in prison, spiritually, in their sins. And it just so happens that May 21 has everything to do with the release of the captives.
So what was May 21? It was the last day of the great tribulation, which relates to the end of the 70-years. What happened at the end of the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity? All of the Jews were released. They were all set free. Well, May 21 is that day.
Secondly – and we did not mention this nearly enough – we knew that we had been in the “latter rain,” but we were also in the second Jubilee, which began in September 1994. September 1994 was the beginning of the second Jubilee, and May 21 was the last day of the Jubilee.
What is the Jubilee? It says in Leviticus 25:9-10:
Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
So May 21 was the last day. It paralleled the end of the 70-year captivity in Babylon. It was the last day of the second Jubilee. It was the day where we read that a great earthquake opened up the prison. One more thing is the Egyptian bondage. God says repeatedly to Israel that He “brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage,” and this occurred at midnight.
We are not going to look at this now; but further on, we are going to try to take a closer look at the Jubilee. Then we will take a closer look at what happened in Egypt and their coming out. But I do want to look at this one verse in Psalm 78. It says in Psalm 78:51-53:
And smote all the firstborn in Egypt…
What time did God do this? It was around midnight. It continues:
…the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham: But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. And he led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
Did you get this? Sheep came out of Egypt at midnight.
Now, after May 21 passed, we were a little confused; but then we began to learn from John 21 – and we went there several weeks ago – that after the great multitude of fish were caught, then Jesus started saying to Peter three times, “Feed My sheep. Feed My sheep. Feed My lambs”; and this has to do with this 153-day period.
After coming out of Egypt at midnight, how does God view all of Israel? They were like sheep. And so, here again, is a relationship to May 21 and to what happened. What happened was the release of all of God’s elect.
We are now waiting for the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles; and the Feast of Tabernacles is a feast that commemorates the coming out of Egypt. When they came out of Rameses, their first stop was Succoth, which is the same word that we get the word “tabernacles” from. And also, God says about this feasts, “Thou shalt rejoice in thy feast.” We are to be glad in our feast.
How many times did God rebuke Israel because they came out of Egypt and they were ungrateful about this? They were not thankful about this at all. After a few days, they were murmuring and complaining. Nothing was right and nothing was good for them; and God chastened them severely in many different ways.
God was looking at Israel, which He did, and He thought of how grateful and thankful they should have been because He had delivered them from bondage to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians, and yet the overwhelming majority of those who came out of Egypt were never saved. This was only a picture, a historical picture, because they were not even saved.
But what God did on May 21 dwarfs the exodus. This dwarfs the physical coming out of the land of Egypt, because how much better is the salvation of a soul than the salvation of physical bonds?
In Egypt, God had hundreds of thousands of Jews, maybe over a million people that He set free, and a mixed multitude. And what did He do on May 21? How many did He set free? He set free 200 million, and these 200 million will not perish in the wilderness. They are truly saved. They are born again. They have everlasting life.
If Israel should have been joyful and thankful as they saw those wonders of God and His great deliverance, how much more us? How much more ought we to be thankful that God has finally completed His salvation plan?
So we were looking at the 70-year period and we saw how this relates to May 21 in one special way. On May 21 in 1988, the great tribulation began. 8400 days later, an exact 23 years on the 8400th day, which was May 21, 2011, this ended.
Then we saw in Ezekiel 1, this tie-in to this with the 70-year period. We read in Ezekiel 1:1-2:
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity,
This thirtieth year is the same as the fifth year. It seems like God just pulls this out of the blue. This thirtieth year has no reference. He does not say that it is thirty years from this or from that. He just says:
…it came to pass in the thirtieth year…
But then He tells us the very year that this is happening in Ezekiel, which was 593 B.C., because this is the “fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity,” and he was taken captive in 598 B.C.
So we are able to count back thirty years. When we do, we find the date of 622 B.C. It could be 623 B.C., depending on if we are counting inclusively or the actual number of years. But this does not matter. Both methods of counting bring us to this same point.
What happened in 622 B.C. was that it was the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign. He was the boy king who began to reign at age eight. In his eighteenth year, he was twenty-six, which is 2 x 13. And these numbers are not insignificant. They are very significant. The number 13 has to do with the end of the world, because 1988 was the 13,000th year of earth’s history. And at age twenty-26, Josiah had 13 more years to live, because he would die at age 39.
God, very definitely, picked that particular year to let us know about the number 13, which is just like He did with Jacob. When Jacob went into Egypt, the Pharaoh asked him, “How old art thou?” Jacob answered, “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years,” which is 10 x 13. And we also know that this whole famine relates to the great tribulation that began in the 13,000th year of earth’s history in 1988.
So in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, what happened? It was 622 B.C. He began to reign in 640 B.C. What happened in the eighteenth year is that they found the Book of the Law.
You can read about this in 2 Chronicles, and you will find that Josiah was already zealous. But this really made him even more faithful and he went about Jerusalem cleaning up the spiritual mess, the idolatry and everything else, because they had discovered the Book of the Law.
What happened May 21, 1988? It was as if we found the Bible, because the Bible had been sealed up “till the time of the end.” Then God took the seals off, and now we have a much better understanding. We have a much greater understanding than we have ever had.
So we see this relationship from the beginning of the great tribulation in 1988. 8400 days later was the end of the great tribulation period. Here we have the Book of the Law found in 622 B.C., because God connects this to this reference to the thirtieth year in Ezekiel 1:1. But why did He do this?
Well, we can start counting at 622 B.C. What I do, just to make sure, is that I write down 622, 621, 620; I write the years all of the way down and then I just number the years, one, two. This way, I will know the number of years. And if we go to 539 B.C., which is the end of the 70th year, it is 84 years from the finding of the Book of the Law in 622 B.C. And this is no coincidence.
So God tells us this year. Then we find that something very important happened in that year. They found the Bible. 84 years later in 539 B.C., which is the end of the 70 years, is also the 84th year from this reference in Ezekiel or from the time that they found the Bible in the temple.
We saw this tie-in and there were other tie-ins; and we know that, historically, this 70 years was a miserable time for Judah; but we know that this was a picture of the 23-year great tribulation that we just went through.
So knowing all of this, let us read Jeremiah 25:11, which says:
And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
The king of Babylon is a figure of Satan. The 70 years typify the great tribulation. And so this is speaking of Satan’s reign as the “man of sin” or as the “abomination of desolation” in the churches up until May 21, which was the complete fullness of the great tribulation period.
Then we read in Jeremiah 25:12:
And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith JEHOVAH, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
There are several verses like this where we basically read that Satan or “the beast” was killed. This would relate more to “the beast” at this time, because “the beast” was his name during the great tribulation. But Satan is still out there. He is still out there, but “the beast” was his name specifically for that 23-year period as he ruled in the congregations.
This could be why we read in Revelation 19 that “the beast was taken, and...cast alive into a lake of fire.” Then in Revelation 20, we find that “the devil” is still there. Then he is thrown into the lake of fire where it says that “the beast and the false prophet are.” It seems that they are already there. But this is just God officially removing him from the position that He had put him in when he was to reign in the churches and also all over the world. And we know this because at the fall of Babylon, the king of Babylon was slain. This is when King Cyrus, also known as Darius, begins to rule; and he was a picture of Christ.
So when we go to Revelation 9, it is important to know this information, because Revelation 9 is going to talk about May 21 and after. The 70-year period was leading up to May 21, 2011, but what happened to “the beast” is referring to five months, which is from May 21 to October 21. We then approach Revelation 9 already knowing that Satan has no authority, that “the beast” has no official authority.
When we read about the locusts having authority, then we know that the locusts are not Satan and that they cannot be his emissaries. It says in Revelation that Satan was given rule for 42 months, which is another figure of speech or reference to the entire great tribulation; and it does say that this rule was “given to him.” Then after this, he would no longer be ruling in the churches or in the world. He still exists and will exist until God destroys him completely on the last day; but for all intents and purposes, officially, his rule has ended.
So it says in Revelation 9:1-3:
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power [authority], as the scorpions of the earth have power [authority].
This word for “power” is also translated as “authority,” and I think that this helps me to understand this better. And so they are given authority, but authority to do what? Well, it goes on to say that the authority that they are given is to bring five months of torment.
The interesting thing that really helps us is when we learn about the bottomless pit. The bottomless pit is what? It is a prison. It has a very mysterious name and, in our minds, we associate all sorts of evil with this; but, actually, it is basically a holding place or a holding cell.
If we go to Revelation 20, we find again that Christ is in view as an angel. He is the “messenger of the covenant”; and so here, He is the One who is the angel being described. We read in Revelation 20:1:
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit…
This word “bottomless” is the Greek word abussos, which is “abyss.” This is where we get the English word “abyss.” And so Jesus is the “angel…having the key.” If you read Revelation 1:18, it says that He possesses the key.
Then it continues on to say in Revelation 20:1:
…and a great chain in his hand.
What is He going to do with this chain? He is going to imprison the devil. He is going to imprison Satan.
Then it goes on to say in Revelation 20:2:
And he laid hold on the dragon…
The way that God has written the Bible, we tend to focus on words like “dragon” and things like this, but then we miss other little phrases like “laid hold on.”
If we go to Matthew 14, we read in Matthew 14:3:
For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife.
So Herod arrested John. Then he bound him and put him in a prison. This is exactly what Christ is doing to the devil. He has laid hold on him, which He did at the cross in 33 A.D. We read in the Gospels, as it says in Matthew 12, “How can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man?” Jesus did this in 33 A.D. This is when He bound Satan.
Continuing in Revelation 20:2-3, it says:
…that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
There is a lot of emphasis here to try to make sure that this criminal is as securely locked up as possible. We read of “a great chain.” He is “laid hold on.” He is “bound.” God “shut him up, and set a seal upon him.” This means that he is not going to get away from being exactly held back from what God wants him to be held back from.
We know that he was bound for “a thousand years” and that this “thousand” has to do with the completeness of the New Testament age from 33 A.D. to 1988, which is actually a literal 1,955 years. But even though he was bound, we know that he was still in the world. He was going about “as a roaring lion…seeking whom he may devour.”
So he was still out there, but just take a look at what has happened since 1988. Take a look at what has happened in the world and at what has happened in the churches when he was loosed. We can just see the multiplication of sin across the face of the earth and in the church.
If we compare this to pre-1988 in the world, yes, there was sin; yes, there was evil; yes, Satan was even in the church. The Bible talks about certain churches being the “synagogue of Satan” even in the first century A.D., but there was restraint. There was God’s Spirit in the midst of the congregations holding them back, but now there is nothing holding them back. As they were given up for judgment into Satan’s hands, there was nothing that held back churches from ordaining women or from ordaining homosexuals or from doing things like falling over backwards.
Were there women teachers throughout the centuries? There probably was one here or one there. There was probably a “Jezebel” here or there. But look at today. This has just ballooned, and this is how it has been with all kinds of sins in the church and in the world.
Again, homosexuality was in the world, but it was “in the closet.” This is a phrase that has been used to describe homosexuals and their behaviour leading up to, really, just the last two to three decades. Now, it is out of the “the closet.” There are parades. This is very open and very accepted, and all of this is because Satan was loosed. He was loosed and God removed His hand of restraint off of the people of the world in order to prepare them for judgment.
So, here, we can see from this language that the bottomless pit is like a prison. We will not have to go to a whole bunch of verses to prove this; but if we go to Revelation 20:7, this tells us. This is speaking of this place, the bottomless pit, the place that the devil was cast into and after a thousand years would be loosed from; and it says in Revelation 20:7:
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
This word for “prison” is the same word that we find in Acts 16. This is a prison.
Okay; this is a prison. Now let us go back to Revelation 9. We are now very interested because of all of this binding and loosing, and this is an extremely major theme of the whole Bible. The coming out of Egypt is made reference to again and again and again, as well as the Jubilee period, and the Babylonian captivity. For example, there are several books of the Bible that deal with the Babylonian captivity: Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, and there are probably others that speak of the going into captivity, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Some books are focused on the captivity itself, like Daniel. Then there are books like Ezra and Nehemiah that speak of the coming out of captivity.
When we put this whole theme together, there is a great amount of material. This is one of the most major doctrines of the whole Bible. Sinners are bound and God’s people are loosed. All sinners who are not saved will remain bound. They are in captivity to sin and to Satan. But God looses His people.
So, on one hand, it is amazing that when we go to Revelation 9 and we are reading about the five months that the bottomless pit, which is right there in the forefront, is actually a prison. This is amazing to see after the other things that we have been looking at.
Again, Christ is the star in Revelation 9:1, which says:
…I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit [or of the prison].
Christ is able to lock and He is able to open. According to Revelation 3, He has the “key of David” and what he opens “no man shutteth” and what he shuts “no man openeth.”
May 21 is without question this day, because Revelation 9 is referring to “five months.” And the Lord Jesus Christ is typified by the star, as we read in Revelation 22:16, which says:
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
Numbers 24:17 also speaks of a star and it is pointing to Christ. He is the star that has the key. Revelation 1:18 and elsewhere also tells us that He has the key, not Satan. Again, forget about Satan, because he has been put down. He no longer has any authority and he does not possess the key to the bottomless pit. If he did, he would have gotten out long ago.
A little further on in Revelation 9 where it is speaking of the locusts, it says in Revelation 9:11:
And they had a king over them, which is the angel [or the messenger] of the bottomless pit…
And this is not Satan. On May 21, his rule as the king of Babylon was put down. He is deposed. It is Christ who is the Messenger of the bottomless pit and the King over these locusts.
So Jesus takes the key and opens the prison or the bottomless pit, and then “there arose a smoke out of the pit,” as we read in Revelation 9:2. Then we read in Revelation 9:3:
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power [authority], as the scorpions of the earth have power [authority].
This does not say that the locusts came out of the pit. This says that they came out of “the smoke” of the pit, and “the smoke” has to do with Judgment Day. This is because we read, “For our God is a consuming fire”; and on Judgment Day, there is fire.
As a matter of fact, would you believe that right now “fire and brimstone” is falling? Would you believe that this is happening right at this time, all around us, all over the earth? It is; it is. Lord willing, we will take a look at this later.
So the smoke has to do with the judgment and wrath of God, and the locusts come out of the smoke. And for awhile, we were a little uneasy with the idea of locusts coming out of the bottomless pit and us identifying the locusts as believers. But now we can see that smoke comes out of the pit, and so, technically, the locusts come out of the pit; because the smoke is related to the pit.
This is no problem because the bottomless pit is a prison. It is a prison and they have been loosed. They have been set free to perform a task, and their task is to bring “fire and brimstone.” And in order to bring “fire and brimstone,” what do we have to do? Nothing; nothing. It is just the true believers who are doing this without really doing anything.
So the locusts are the believers and locusts swarm in multitudes. If you want to, you can go to Google or to YouTube where you can see some footage of locusts swarming. There are tens of millions in some cases or even more that swarm upon the land and they eat all that is before them.
The believers are these locusts, and then it says in Revelation 9:4:
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
If you have “the seal of God” in your forehead, you are saved and the locusts cannot hurt you. If you do not have this “seal of God,” then what these locusts are designed to do is to injure you and to hurt. This word for “hurt” is translated many times as “wrong,” as in to do wrong to those who are not saved.
Then we read in Revelation 9:5:
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Again, just to emphasize this. They are not scorpions, but their torment is “as” a scorpion, because scorpions in the Bible are related to false gospels or actually to those within Satan’s kingdom, like we read in Luke 10:17-20, where it says:
And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power…
And this is the same word as “authority” again. It continues:
Behold, I give unto you power [authority] to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.
So Christ gave authority to His people to bring the Gospel to the world, and this power was over “serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” This means that “serpents and scorpions” are under the power of Satan, spiritually. But now, believers are coming like scorpions and the locusts are like scorpions.
What does the Seventh Day Adventist Church have in common with the Mormon Church and them with the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church with a Free Will Baptist Church? They are varied, are they not? They all have a lot of variations on the Gospel, but they all have one thing in common. They are all false and not one of them can bring salvation, not one of them.
This is the one thing in common that all false congregations and churches have. They can tell you different ways they believe that they can get you saved; but, finally, at the end, every single one of them has in common that they can provide no salvation and no real blessing. No one is going to enter into Heaven through any one of those ways that they are laying out.
So when locusts come, which are the true believers, and they come for these five months and they come “as” scorpions, there is no salvation because there is no salvation in the message that they are bringing.
Now, there is great hope. The hope is that maybe God saved you prior to May 21 when He opened up the prison doors. All of those prisoners stayed there. They stayed there. They did not leave. “We are all here,” Paul cried out. And so there could be people in our families or in our neighborhoods or anywhere who have been set free by God on this great day of deliverance.
May 21 ought not to be a day that people should be embarrassed or hesitant to think about. God says of the coming out of Egypt that it was a day to be much remembered or oft remembered.
Why? This is because they were slaves. They were bondservants in the “house of bondage.” He says that He brought them forth “out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt.” They had been full of grief, and so they cried out to God. He heard their cries and set them free.
Then he established the feasts. He established the Passover. Even the Feast of Tabernacles was as a remembrance while they dwelt in booths while in the wilderness. It was a great time to remember what He had done.
Yet May 21 was how many times better? It was 10,000 times 10,000 times better, because this was a real deliverance from sin and from Satan. This was a real setting free forevermore. It was eternal life for all those whom God opened up the prison house.
Do not forget what Jesus said in Isaiah 61:1:
The spirit of the Lord JEHOVAH is upon me; because JEHOVAH hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
This is the Gospel and God fulfilled it. He completed it. But the world would think that we would hang our heads. The churches would hope that we would hang our heads, but transport yourself back to the cross in 33 A.D. What a bitter disappointment that was. What a terrible defeat that Jesus who they had thought would be their Messiah and deliver them had ended up dead on the cross. Their own leaders, the chiefs of the Jews, turned Him over into the hands of the Romans; and so they seemed to have the victory and they seemed to be those who were the ones who won.
This is why we find the believers cast down at that time, like Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus. They were sad. Or like Mary when she went into the garden weeping because she thought that someone had taken away her Lord.
So we find that this was the case of the disciples, the true believers. They were in complete confusion. This continued and took a little while until Jesus Himself started making appearances to them, explaining things to them, and convincing them that they were thinking about things all wrong, that they had it all wrong, because the greatest victory of all time, which was represented by that tableau, had just been won.
It was not a defeat. It was not a loss. It was Satan who was the one who was bound on that day. Then on the last day of God’s salvation plan, the day of liberty, the last one before midnight, before the day ended and it turned to Judgment Day, God set them free.
He had already done this, but He was now applying what He had done from before the foundation of the world. He was grabbing all of His people and taking them out of Satan’s kingdom.
Could He do this if Satan had not been completely defeated? He could not do this. He put him down first, and then He took the kingdom, like Cyrus took Babylon. And He killed the devil, like Cyrus had Belshazzar slain that very night.
So as we think about this day, we realize that it was not what we thought. It was not what we thought at all. It actually is a great and wonderful day for us to consider and to look back on.
Going back to Revelation 9, it says in Revelation 9:6:
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
Again, there is a theme going through this. There is a theme where the locusts are like scorpions; that is, they are like false gospels because there is no salvation. And here, we read of “in those days,” which are these 153 days that we are in the mist of, this is when men will seek death and not find it.
If anybody has heard the news recently, we all know that people are still finding death. There are still murders. There are still suicides. There is still death everywhere. So this cannot be physical. It cannot be.
We actually understood this and knew that this was not physical because of a verse like what we read in Romans. There are other verses, too, but Romans 6:5-7 tells us:
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him...
To be crucified means that you are dead. It continues:
…that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.
This is speaking of the believer’s death in Christ. This is, of course, the sting. The tragic news is that there is no salvation available now if someone is not saved.
The hope that exists for a mother or a father or a brother or a sister or for a neighbor is that maybe God already did this, but we could say that it sure does not look good in many cases. It sure does not look good at all for certain people.
So this is sorrowful. This is tragic. It is very bad that there is no hope today for some people, and this is what Revelation 9:6 is saying. People are still going to churches and there are individuals all over the earth who would still seek to enter into Heaven.
This has been the case throughout history. People have sought through various gospels or religions to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; and so men do seek God in ways, not in God’s ways, but they do seek Him according to other ways; and yet God is not going to have mercy on anyone today and save anyone today.
Moving on, I do not want to get into each one of the descriptions of the locusts. I will just read this up to verse 14 in Revelation 9. It says in Revelation 9:7:
And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold…
We know that believers have crowns. Every child of God is given a crown and this has to do with salvation.
It continues on in Revelation 9:7-8 to say:
…and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women…
God likens believers to being in the feminine role. We are the Bride of Christ, and hair has to do with submission.
It says in Revelation 9:8 again:
And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
Christ is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the Lion. Satan is also likened to a lion; and so, too, is Christ.
Then it says in Revelation 9:9-10:
And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions…
We have already talked about this. This is because false gospels have no salvation and the locusts are bringing the same message.
Then it says in Revelation 9:10-11:
…and there were stings in their tails: and their power [or authority] was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them…
This would be Jesus. It continues on to say in Revelation 9:11:
…which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
“Abaddon” means “destruction” and “Apollyon” means “to destroy,” and this is Judgment Day. This is what God is doing. He is bringing destruction on mankind.
Then it says in Revelation 9:12-13:
One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
We read about the golden altar in Revelation 8:3, which says:
And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
Maybe later we can talk more about the golden altar, but this has to do with incense and the prayers of the saints. Remember that God’s people have been crying out since Abel. We read of the blood of Abel crying out to God in a figure, because the believers ask, “How long, O Lord, before You avenge our death?” And now is that time. This is the day of God’s vengeance.
Then we read in Revelation 9:14:
Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
So, now, we are involved with another picture. God just described the locusts and now He is talking about four angels that are bound in a river.
It is unusual to try to picture this. How could we do this? We cannot even picture an angel. An angel is a spirit being.
So how do you get four angels, bind them up, and then throw them into the Euphrates? And why would you do this? And why four? Why not ten or a hundred or twelve legions? Why is it that just four angels are bound?
And here is that word again, “bound,” and the command is to loose them. But this is the same thing. The bottomless pit was a prison. Christ opened it and loosed the locusts. Now we have four angels bound in a “great river,” in the river Euphrates.
On this word “angel,” I just took a bunch of notes and jotted down a bunch of verses, because it is hard for us to get over a certain idea. But the word “angel” in the Old Testament and in the New Testament could properly be translated as “messenger.” In the Hebrew, this word is mal'ak, and in the Greek it is aggelos.
God uses these words in pretty much the same way from the Old Testament to the New Testament, except we do not find in the Greek that often that aggelos is translated as “messenger.” In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, this word mal'ak is translated as “messenger” dozens of times, but aggelos in the New Testament is only translated as “messenger” a few times.
For instance, turn to Matthew 11. This is speaking of John the Baptist. It says in Matthew 11:9-10:
But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger [aggelos] before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
Here, this is the same word as “angel,” and yet John the Baptist is this messenger. He is definitely not a spirit being. He is a man, and yet God said, “I send my messenger.”
This made the translators realize that this could not be an angel, like all of the other places that they translated this word as “angel” where it was not as clear; and so they realized that this had to be referring to a “messenger.” And they already probably had the Old Testament to help them in understanding this.
Look also at Luke 7:24. This says:
And when the messengers of John were departed…
This is the word “angel” in the plural form.
Some people might even say that translating aggelos as “messenger” in relation to John was just one special case, but here is John sending “messengers.” He is sending “angels” or aggelos, but he is not God. He sends them to Jesus, if you remember, to ask, “Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?” And this is the same word for “angels” that we find elsewhere. Again, John did not send spirit beings. He sent some of his followers. He sent men.
Turn also to James 2:25. This says:
Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
This is referring to the spies, and this is the word “angels” or aggelos in the Greek. This is the same word that we find in the book of Revelation.
So we know from the use of this word that we have to look at the context. When men were in view, the translators translated this as “messengers.” But when they were not sure, they almost always translated this as “angels.” And in some cases, it was actually referring to angels; but in other cases, it was not.
It is the same in the Old Testament. I will just go to one verse. Turn to Genesis 32:3; but if you look this word up in your concordance, you could go to a lot more verses. This is the Hebrew word mal'ak. We read in Genesis 32:3:
And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
We know the rest of this story. Jacob was afraid of Esau and so he sent some of his servants ahead with gifts for Esau, and these were men. And so the translators caught this and did not translate this as “angels” but as “messengers.”
Sometimes this word is also used to refer to God Himself. When two angels went into Sodom, that was God. That was God, but He was identified as two angels. Jesus is the “messenger of the covenant” and He is also called “Michael the archangel.” “Arch” means “chief.” He is the chief messenger of God.
There is just a lot of evidence that shows us that when we find a word that is translated as “angel,” we have allowance and are justified to translate this as “messenger.” There is a lot of evidence that would permit us to say that this word really should be translated as “messenger” when the other circumstances surrounding it will support this. And so in Revelation 9, the four “angels” should really be the four “messengers,” which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
Turn now to Revelation 7 and we will read about four angels there, too. We read in Revelation 7:1:
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
These are “four angels” who are on “the four corners of the earth.” This helps us to understand the number four. This is the furthest extent of whatever is in view or universality, as this is speaking of the “four corners of the earth.” We cannot go beyond this because this means the whole world, and the four angels are standing there and holding something back. They are holding something back, which is fully in keeping with the idea of something being bound.
This is like when Satan was bound; he was held back for a “thousand years.” And the locusts were coming out of the prison, out of the smoke of the bottomless pit, so they were restrained. These four angels also are waiting for something to happen.
Then it says in Revelation 7:2-3:
And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
This is a similar idea to the locusts.
We read again in Revelation 9:4:
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
If we flip this around, they are not to hurt those who do have the “seal of God.” We see this same thing with the four angels, and they are holding it back until everyone who is one of God’s elect gets this seal in his forehead, because this would mean that they have become saved. They are safe. They are secure.
So the implication is that once God has sealed His elect, then they are loosed. They are holding back this hurt from the “four winds” all over the earth.
Once again, what we find on May 21 is that God had saved every one of His elect. God saved all of His elect, each and every one who was spiritually in Satan’s captivity. We are really finding that May 21 was the end of the captivity to sin and to Satan and that, now, God’s chosen people are free.
Look now at Revelation 9:14. This says:
…Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
In relation to this language of loosing and binding, turn to Matthew 18:18. It says:
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven…
Actually, the tense would be “having been bound in heaven.”
Then it continues to say:
…and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
And, again, this would be “having been loosed in heaven.”
This is Christ giving instructions to His people. He is basically setting up the sending of the Gospel into the world through the churches. Through the Gospel, they could bind; and through the Gospel, they could loose. This is because it is the Word of God that looses those who are in spiritual prison, those who are in spiritual captivity.
I just want to look quickly at John 11. We read in John 11:44 where this is speaking of Lazarus:
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
Lazarus was dead and he was bound with graveclothes, and death held its prey; but here, Christ says, “Lazarus, come forth,” and he is loosed. We can see that salvation is definitely in view.
I want to go to one last place. We read in Luke 13:11-16:
And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?
Once again, we see this binding and loosing. People are bound to Satan and to sin, and Christ looses.
So these four angels were bound in the great river Euphrates, but we do not have time to get into this. We will try to pick this up again, and then we will see how the four angels are the 200 million. They are one and the same; and so we could say that 200 million were bound in the great river Euphrates. These are the 200 million who were delivered and who came out of spiritual bondage and captivity on that great day, that glorious day of May 21.
Let us stop here and have a word of prayer.
Dear Father, we do thank You for Your salvation plan and for Your deliverance. We thank You for all that You have given us and provided for us. We thank You that You have done all of the work. You have worked out Your plan perfectly and completely. We ask that You would help us from this point to go forward rejoicing and singing and thanking You for such a great salvation. Father, we pray these things in Christ’s Name. Amen.