A Study of The Book of Revelation, Part #32

Earl Gillespie

The Fifth and Sixth Trumpet

Judgment

Often when I in a state of deep contemplation I ponder if we really are aware that our testimony can cause the faith of many to fail.  The preacher who stated his prayers were keeping his family alive did much damage to the mother grieving the lost of her child.  His status as a "prayer warrior" was shattered when weeks later members of his family was killed in an accident.  The church must acknowledge that there is a younger generation who do not believe the word of our testimony.  A "living testimony" is desired by many but a testimony taken to the extreme is often viewed as a search for vain glory and is capable of causing another to stumble. In one religious order the healing virtues of God are amplified, and any visit to the doctor is considered a sin and demonstrates a lack of faith. Children have been allowed to die for the lack of medical treatment, and the courts often have to intervene. In another group the doctor visit and hospitalization is acceptable because this is God's way of healing. There are many people, even church members who are confused when a person undergo major surgery and  then began to tell how God heal them, while another sits and wonder, "why did God let my husband die." 

My thoughts on the subject is when I look out my window I do not see a world where God is doing all of these great things people are testifying about. I do not see God working behind the scenes to make our earthly journey come out right.  I see Jesus standing in the midst of the seven candlesticks observing and his message to the church is, "I know  your situation, and if you can endure I will give you a crown of life".  I see a world that is caught up in its own vanity and its own excess a world that caught up in the grip of satanic forces.  I see a world that have created his own God in it's own image.  Families are torn apart. Children killing children, mothers against daughters and fathers against sons. There are wars and there are rumors of wars. Earthquakes and sinkholes spreading across the land. Many will ask where is God., as they pretend He is directing the affairs of man.  We ought to be careful that we do not make a mockery of our God.  For centuries God watched over and protected his people, Israel, but they repaid His love and kindness by rejecting His Son, and that Dispensation ended, like its predecessors, in revealing the ungrateful and disobedient nature of fallen man. God the Father left this earth long ago, and then he sent his son who came preaching, “repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” they killed him, but he arose and went back to his father.And now he is seated on the right hand side of an angry God waiting till his Father say, “enough, let the day of judgement began.” Read Matthew 24:14-30, Mark 12:1-9, Luke 20:9-16.  The Book of Revelation tells how it all will end.

Matthew 24:10-13  And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Luke 18:8  I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Revelation 9:1-12  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, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 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. 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. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. 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, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, 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.  One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

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When the fifth trumpet sent forth its blast, John saw “a star” fall from Heaven. This was not a literal star. The Holy Spirit makes that very clear when He speaks of the star as “he.” This is not strange at all. In Job 38:7, angels were called stars. The star John saw fall from Heaven had the key to the bottomless pit, and according to Revelation 1:18   "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Therefore, I believe this angel to be none other than the Son of God in angelic form.  I believe this is the same person who appears in Revelation 20:1-3, when He comes down having a key, and unlocks the bottomless pit. He has a chain in His hand, and He binds Satan and puts him into the pit.  These facts should make it very clear that the star-angel is not Satan, but the Lord Jesus Christ. It stands to reason that Almighty God would not trust the key of hell to a fallen angel nor to Satan. There is a difference between the “bottomless pit” and  "the lake of fire"  The bottomless pit is Hell. and we will discuss the lake of fire when we reach Revelation 20. Hell is the prison of the wicked spirits who have died since Adam. Demons are there, the wicked spirits are there; but Satan is walking up and down in the earth -sometimes as a roaring lion, other times as an angel of light (Job 1:6-12; I Peter 5:8; II Corinthians 11:13-15). 

In Luke 16 we have the moving account of the rich man and Lazarus. This is not a parable; it is an actual account of a rich man and a beggar, both of whom died. This is a conversation between two dead people. Father Abraham and Lazarus are named - and the Holy Spirit never uses proper names or names of departed saints of God in parables. This certain rich man died and opened his eyes in hell. He was tormented in the flames, he begged for water to cool his parching tongue. The beggar Lazarus died, and was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom, the place of rest. A baby rests upon the bosom of its mother. Abraham’s bosom is the Paradise of God. Abraham is there, all the departed saints are there. Paul was caught up into Paradise (II Corinthians 12:1- 4). When the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool his tongue, he was reminded that Lazarus could not come where he was, because between the fire and the Paradise of rest, there was a great gulf fixed.  

 In the Old Testament era, all departing saints went into the heart of the earth. Hell was divided into two compartments. Between the fires of hell and the Paradise where Abraham was, there was a great gulf. I believe that gulf has now been broken down, and what was Paradise in the Old Testament era is now a part of the burning inferno called hell. “Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure . . .” (Isaiah 5:14a). God simply removed the partition, and now the spirits of the damned occupy the entirety of the center of this earth. The earth is round, the center is a sphere, and therefore is bottomless. I believe hell is in the center of this earth. At the Great white Throne judgment the spirits of the wicked will be brought out of hell in the center of the earth, and they will appear before the Great white Throne to receive their just reward according to their wickedness. 

Today hell is in the center of the earth. The center of this earth is proven to be a rolling, tumbling mass of molten rock and liquid fire. Many times earth’s surface bursts open, explodes, fire pours out and liquid lava (melted rock) flows down the side of a mountain. We call these explosions “volcanic eruptions.” There are boiling springs in the western part of our country. In the Bible, hell is always referred to as being “down.” Isaiah tells us, “Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming . . . yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit” (Isaiah 14:9 and 15). In Numbers 16:30-33 we have the account of an entire company dropping into hell alive. The Scripture tells us that the earth opened her mouth, and those people went down into the pit . . into hell . . . alive, and the earth closed her mouth upon them. All the people of Korah - their houses and everything they had - dropped into hell and the earth shut her mouth. 

There was no hell in the beginning. In Genesis 1:1 we read, “In the beginning God created the heaven (singular) and the earth (singular).” The Scripture does not say heavens (plural) nor earths (plural). There is no mention of hell here. There was no devil in the beginning. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were in the beginning. God created the angels, the cherubim, the seraphim, and the archangels. There were probably three archangels, with Lucifer the chief of the three. Sometime, perhaps after millions of years, yes millions of years,  Lucifer decided to overthrow God and take His throne. He brainwashed some of the angels, led them to believe they could overthrow God, and they made such an attempt. But since the Creator is greater than the created, and since God created Lucifer and all the angels, God cast Lucifer and the fallen angels out of Heaven. Study Ezekiel 28:11-15 and Isaiah 14:12-14. God literally threw Lucifer out of Heaven, and Jesus the Son said He witnessed it: “And He (Jesus) said unto them, I beheld Satan as lighting fall from Heaven" (Luke 10:18). When Jesus made this announcement to His disciples, He spoke in the past tense, not future. This does not refer to the time when Satan will be eternally cast out. (We will study about this later in Revelation.) Luke 10:18 refers to the time when Satan was cast out of Heaven.

The devil is a self-made creature. He was not a devil in his original state, but when he decided in his own heart that he could overthrow God, and led some of the angels to believe the same, he became the Deceiver the devil. God was forced to cast him out of Heaven, and since Lucifer (the shining one) had become the devil (the deceiver) God was forced to prepare a prison for the disobedient ones. Therefore, hell was prepared “for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Jude tells us that the angels which left their first estate are now reserved in chains awaiting the day of judgment. Read Jude in its entirety. God did not create hell for man, God did not create man for hell; but all men who choose to follow Satan must spend eternity with him in hell. Hell today is in the center of this earth, and will remain there until the consummation of all things. Then all the wicked spirits since Adam, together with the evil angels and Satan himself, will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where they will remain throughout the ages of eternity, burning and begging in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10-15).

If by chance there are some who still doubt that hell is in the center of the earth, let me give you one more Bible proof: When Jesus was here on earth, the scribes and Pharisees asked Him to give them a sign to prove that He was God’s Son. Jesus said, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:38-40). Prophesying concerning the Lord Jesus, the Psalmist said, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Psalm 16:10). The words are repeated in Acts 2:25-27: “For David speaketh concerning Him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” And now, the capstone that proves the pyramid of truth that hell is in the center of the earth: Ephesians 4:8-10  Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.  (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

 When the angel unlocks the bottomless pit, smoke will issue from it - and this will not be symbolic smoke. It will be real, just like the smoke that comes from your chimney. The Bible refers to it as the smoke issuing from a great furnace. It will completely black out the sun, and there will be darkness over all the land. When Jesus hung on the cross, the sun refused to shine and all the earth was in darkness for three hours. In this Scripture, the sun is shining but the smoke of God’s judgment blacks it out. Out of the smoke, millions of locusts will appear. . . billions of demon locusts will come out of the smoke that proceeds out of hell. They will have the power to sting men like the scorpions of the earth have power. Do I believe this? Why should I not believe it? Why should I believe anything else? Why should I symbolize and spiritualize these locusts? The torment of the locusts is as the torment of earth’s scorpions when the scorpions strike a man. This terrible torment will last for five months. Think of it! Five months of agony, five months of scorpions. Do I believe this is a literal five months? I answer with these questions: Do I believe John 3:16? Do I believe Acts 16:3-17 Do I believe the 23rd Psalm? Do I believe John 14:2 - “In my Father’s house are many mansions”? I certainly do! Then why should I not believe this? Men will be stung and bitten by locusts for five months.

Continued