Bethel Baptist Church of Tillamook, OR
October 25, 2026
  • To God Be the Glory
  • The Lord Is My Salvation
  • O Church Arise

  • I. The First Woe, 9:1-12

    A. The Opening of the Abyss, 9:1-2.

    v. 1 - A star -an angelic being as God’s holy emissary comes to set into motion acts of divine judgment against sinful humanity. What he does has cosmic significance.
    Fallen – compare Revelation 20:1-3
    Revelation 20:1–3 NASB95
    Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.
    The angel of our concern is not a fallen angel; he is an angel who has moved to a lower level.
    Bottomless pit – also translated abyss. The Greek word means depth with no limit; It is used in Revelation seven times, and always of describing a place of torment or imprisonment.
    v. 2 – the angel opened wide the pit; its immediate effects smoke like a great furnace, darkening the sun and the air.

    B. Severe human suffering is inflicted, 9:3-12.

    1. The plague of “locusts”: their mission and effect, 9:3-6.

    v. 3 – “Locusts – this is similar to the 8th plague on Egypt, yet these are unnatural creatures, worse than the scourge of natural locusts who strip the land of anything green. These however 1) are given power from God to inflict excruciating pain like that of a scorpion sting, and
    v. 4 – 2) They were given a mandate from God to not target plant life, but to only inflict the men (mankind) who do not have the seal of God on their forehead
    v. 5 – They were not permitted – God put restraints on what they were allowed to do when they attacked men. They could not kill anyone, but they could torment them. This suffering is more severe than death, yet God graciously limits it to a short period (five months), longer agony than anyone would care to endure. The torment was compared to the pain of a scorpion’s sting.
    v. 6 – “in those days” John’s vision points to conditions that will prevail in the future when what John has seen in his vision comes to pass. Mankind will be unable to escape this anguish.

    2.   Their horrific appearance, 9:7-10.

    v. 7 – The appearance is of a broad likeness of horses prepared for battle
    Illustration: the riders of Gondor.
    Not like horse but grouped, eager for battle. On their heads – crowns of gold in a sinister honor; faces – human-like, perhaps representing evil intelligence along with their brute power.
    v. 8 – hair – perhaps approximating the appearance of insect-like antennae. Teeth depicted as like a lion’s, powerful and ravenous.
    v. 9 – breastplates – speak of power and protection. The sound of their wings – like chariots on the move, many horses rushing to battle.
    It sems more fitting with the textual evidence that these are demons that are functioning in some way like an invading army, but with an escalation of physical horror and suffering beyond that of human warfare.
    v. 10 – adds an extremely menacing detail to these creatures, supplementing the information from verses 4-5.

    3.   The demonic ruler of the abyss, 9:11.

    “The angel of the abyss” is not Satan, but one with intermediate authority, who exercises authority over these subordinate demons, appearing as locusts to attack earth’s inhabitants.
    They come from the world of the dead and the damned.
    The name Abaddon (Heb.) and Apollyon (Greek) mean “destruction, ruin” his name has significance.
    In the OT Abaddon is seen in parallelism with Sheol, like in Proverbs 27:20
    Proverbs 27:20 NASB95
    Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, Nor are the eyes of man ever satisfied.
    with death in Job 28:22
    Job 28:22 NASB95
    “Abaddon and Death say, ‘With our ears we have heard a report of it.’
    and the grave in Psalm 88:11
    Psalm 88:11 NASB95
    Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?

    4. Summary and transition, 9:12.

    “is past” marks the transition. It is past in the sense of john’s vision, but it is yet to be fulfilled in history. The warning is that there are more woes coming “after these things,” a temporal expression.

    II. The Second Woe, 9:13-21.

    A. The demonic assault killing one-third of humanity, 9:13-19.

    1. The release of a vast cavalry from the East, 9:13-16.

    v. 13 -The sixth angel blows his trumpet, John hears a voice, one speaking with divine authority. The voice could be from God Himself or an overseeing angel directing other angels under God’s authority.
    v. 14 – the voice directly addresses the angel with the sixth trumpet to release the four angels who are “bound at the great river Euphrates.” These angels are not evil, fallen angels; they are angels who visit God’s punishments on the objects of His judgment. The Euphrates invokes the image of massive, invading armies like the Assyrians, or the Babylonians.
    v. 15 – These angels have stood ready to act, but waited until God’s predetermined time came. “Hour … year” points out John’s emphasis: God’s sovereign coordination of His agents in judgment throughout Revelation. Two facts: 1) God is in control of the events of this world, 2) Those events occur according to His timetable. The release of these four angels is horrific, but they have a God-ordained task: to kill one-third of mankind, once again a measure of destruction; not total yet a staggering level of anguish and devastation. How will this be done?
    v. 16 – An army of “horsemen,” numbered two hundred million. To make no mistake John testifies that he heard this number. It was not an estimate; it was a part of the heavenly vision he is given. An army this size would wreak unspeakable levels of destruction.

    2.   Their appearance and effects, 9:17-19.

    v. 17 – John describes what he saw in the vision, the horses and their riders. He starts with the riders. They have breastplates the color of red (fiery red), hyacinth (dark blue) and brimstone (sulfurous yellow) which foreshadow the plagues that follow.
    “Heads” like lions, suggestive of the power and ferocity of the attack. “Out of their mouths” comes fire, smoke, and brimstone. This is supernatural; this pictures demonic forces unleashed against sinful humanity.
    v. 18 – one-third of mankind is killed by the three destructive elements that proceed from the horses’ mouth.
    v. 19 – the description turns here. Note the power of the horses. What’s described here would evoke something like dragons. These breathe out fire, smoke, and brimstone. They are also described as having serpent-like, multi-headed tails. These tails are snake-like and deadly to humans just like their fire-breathing mouths.

    B.    Results of these two trumpet judgments: no repentance, 9:20-21.

    v. 20 – Here follows the spiritual/religious aftermath of these judgments for those who did not die. There is no repentance, no change in their course of life, but they continue in their violation of the worship of the true God, choosing to worship demons and idols which are without life. The bitter irony is those who worship demons are not somehow exempt from demonic violence, but they will suffer severe attacks from these demonic hordes and remain unrepentant.
    v. 21 – Along with violating the worship of the one true God, they continue to commit moral offenses against their fellow man. Three of the actions that they would not repent are actions prohibited in the Decalogue, Exodus 20:13-15
    Exodus 20:13–15 NASB95
    “You shall not murder. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal.
    “Their sorceries” associated these moral offenses with false worship and its actions against other humans to deceive them into its idolatries.
    It is a widespread Jewish-Christian conviction that departure from the worship of the one true God inevitably leads to false worship and moral debauchery, 2 Kings 17:15-19
    2 Kings 17:15–19 NASB95
    They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers and His warnings with which He warned them. And they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations which surrounded them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them. They forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. Then they made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, and practiced divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him. So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His sight; none was left except the tribe of Judah. Also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs which Israel had introduced.
    with Acts 7:41-43
    Acts 7:41–43 NASB95
    “At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. “But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel? ‘You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship. I also will remove you beyond Babylon.’
    This reveals the irresistible power of evil that holds humankind in its grip.
    These last two verses remind us that, even in this late hour of redemptive history as John describes what he sees, God’s intent is to bring people to repentance, and not destruction. Amid the widespread devastation, there is still limits to God’s punishment, verse 10, “five months,” vs. 15 and 18, “one-third.” In God’s patience, He offers time for billions to turn away from evil before the final judgment falls. Yet despite this, people will stubbornly refuse to repent.
    Illustrated here is the indivisible link between worship and ethics. What we worship and how we conduct ourselves always go together. The ideology we adopt (even if we refuse to acknowledge the “religious” commitment that is at its core) affects our lifestyle, and vice versa. But our vaunted autonomy to choose our own way proves to be a mirage since the choices we make always make us who we are.
    In biblical teaching, sin is not something we opt for but is a hostile and enslaving force whose bonds we cannot break on our own, Rom 5:12, 21
    Romans 5:12 NASB95
    Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
    Romans 5:21 NASB95
    so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
    “It [sin} is,” states Mangina in his Revelation commentary, “a self-perpetuating cycle of idolatry and falsehood from which, humanly speaking, there is no escape.”
    But God, through His emancipating grace in Christ, freely offers deliverance from its power, (Rom. 3:24, 6:23; Rev. 21:6, 22:17).
    Romans 3:24 NASB95
    being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
    Romans 6:23 NASB95
    For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
    Revelation 21:6 NASB95
    Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.
    Revelation 22:17 NASB95
    The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.
    This is a gift that no one should refuse!

      • Revelation 20:1–3NASB95

      • Proverbs 27:20NASB95

      • Job 28:22NASB95

      • Psalm 88:11NASB95

      • Exodus 20:13–15NASB95

      • 2 Kings 17:15–19NASB95

      • Acts 7:41–43NASB95

      • Romans 5:12NASB95

      • Romans 5:21NASB95

      • Romans 3:24NASB95

      • Romans 6:23NASB95

      • Revelation 21:6NASB95

      • Revelation 22:17NASB95

  • Rescue The Perishing
Bethel Baptist Church of Tillamook, OR
revrlcasper@gmail.com
(503) 842-5598
https://bbc-tillamook.faithlifesites.com
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