Revelation 9:1-2
This chapter continues the “story of earth” and really gets interesting, for there are many ideas concerning what is contained in this chapter.
One thing we should point out is that most consider what is described here as symbolism and not literal. Particularly those who subscribe to a historical view of the book of Revelation verses a prophetic view.
There is a rule of scripture that many miss and it is found in Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 and 3:15. Which gives us an understanding that everything that is to come in the earth has already happened in the history of mankind.
Types and shadows are common through out scripture to help us to understand what is already revealed or yet to be unveiled. The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.
When someone takes prophetic scripture and applies it to history, they aren’t entirely wrong, they just have not understood this rule, so they see things only from their perspective.
When we apply the rule to the book of Revelation, we see events that took place in history that fit, “but” is a type and shadow of a prophetic event. We have many examples of types and shadows through scripture and we will just bring up this one to make our point. The story in Genesis 22 we see Abraham offering his only begotten son of his wife Sarah as a sacrifice, yet a animal sacrifice is substituted which is a clear type of the sacrifice of God’s only Son Jesus Christ.
Saying all that, we have explanations in chapter nine of anything from historical events such as the Mohammedan army, to a present day army, to attack helicopters, to insect drones being created by our Government, to actual insects, to mutations of mixing men and animals, to a more literal spiritual event which this teacher subscribes to and will explain as we proceed.
Now verse 1 the fifth trumpet is sounded. John sees what he describes as star fall or the original Greek rendering is that it has already fallen, to the earth and is given the key to the bottomless pit.
Is this another meteor, I think not since what ever this is, is able to handle some form of key given to it. Many will say this is another angel because of the light, however notice that it did not say this star flew down to the earth, but had fallen. What angel do we know that fits that description, “satan?”
This star is Lucifer which changes to his fallen state as satan and he also is the leader described later of this evil horde of locust that will come out of this pit which we will get to later. Now satan has been described by the Apostle Paul as an angel of light in 2Corinthians 11:14.
Before satan fell he was the most anointed cherub which would be a very bright angel until he fell. Satan’s name was Lucifer which defines as a light bearer. So it’s a fit, that John sees this most anointed cherub (light bearer) falling.
It helps us to remember that events will pop up out of the past and find relevance to a future event in the book of Revelation. It was pointed out in the introduction of this overview that the book of Revelation is not chronologically written, but is flashes of different scenes pieced together to reveal what is to come.
This is what is happening here, John is seeing into the pre-earth event of the past of Lucifer lifting himself up against God in pride in which he is cast down to the earth and relating this to what is going to happen in chapter 9.
Verse 2 has satan opening the bottomless pit and releasing what has been contained there for millennia of time. When we get into the explanation of who these locust are, this too will be discussed.
So the pit is opened and smoke rises out of the pit darkening the atmosphere to where even the sun will not shine through. This could be an indication of a very fiery place in which these beings had been imprisoned.