Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #10 of Revelation, chapter 9, and we are going to be reading 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.
This is referring to the locusts that Christ set in motion when He opened the bottomless pit and the smoke came out of the pit as a smoke of great furnace; and the locusts come out of the smoke because it points to the elect people of God; God is using His people as He is judging the world. He is judging the world with His saints. It is not that we are going forth militarily, doing battle in a literal way. We are just going about our everyday lives and we are continuing to do what God’s people do and that is to look to the Bible, find direction, discover what it is saying and share that information with others. Yet, since we are here, living on the earth in the Day of Judgment and since God has completed His salvation program by saving all those that were to become saved (the whole company of the elect), this has, in essence, turned God’s people into a mighty, devouring army typified, here, by locusts. The locusts consume fruit and seed and every green thing. That is what they do naturally, but here the picture is that they are not to hurt the grass, the green thing or any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
In Revelation 9:5, God is telling us about the mission of the locusts: “And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months.” Who are the “them” that are not to be killed, but are to be tormented for a period of five months? It is referring back to the men that have not the seal of God in their foreheads, the unsaved people of the earth. What God has done in this chapter is that He has broken up the objects of His wrath into two groups: the locusts are a force that come against the unsaved inhabitants of the earth, in general; then, later, we read of two hundred million horsemen (which also typify the elect, just as the locusts), which will be looking at the Day of Judgment from the vantage point of those “professed” Christians that are found in the churches and congregations. These were those that were under God’s judgment during the 23-year Great Tribulation period, but God will now get into a final disposition of them, concerning the conclusion of the judgment against the “third part.”
But, here, we are reading of the locusts and that “it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months,” and in order to understand this, we are going to skip ahead a little bit to look at this same word “kill.” It is Strong’s #615. It is translated as “slay” in Revelation 9:15 and it is translated as “killed,” in Revelation 9:18 and in Revelation 9:20. So let us just jump ahead to Revelation 9:15:
And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
This is a very big difference from the instructions given to the locusts; the locusts were to torment those that did not have the seal of God on their foreheads, but it was not given that they should kill them. Yet, the two hundred million were loosed and prepared to kill the “third part of men.” Why this difference? It is because it really has to do with “hope.” It has to do with the perspective of man toward the possibility of salvation. The “third part” is a reference to all the professed Christians that are in the corporate churches, which number about two billion people. God had warned them and warned them and warned them, that the Holy Spirit had departed out of the midst of the congregations and that Satan was there and they must get out. God warned them for a prolonged period of time and they did not hearken; they remained. Yet, in that situation, they could not experience the “latter rain.” There was no Spirit of God to bless the Word to their hearts, to open their spiritual ears or to give them faith, so no one in any church could have been saved as long as they were a part of the congregation. It just was not possible. Yet, at the same time as God was judging the churches over the last about 17 years of that 23-year Great Tribulation period, He began to send forth the “latter rain” outside of the churches and congregations. But for the “third part” that remained in the churches, they did not experience a “drop” of the latter rain; they had not placed themselves in a location whereby the rain could have fallen and there could be some hope, potentially, that they could have become saved.
So the fact that they remained in the congregations was evidence that they were not saved, because the Lord was separating the wheat from the tares and the tares remained. The wheat got out, by the grace of God. Remember how God pictures the good fruit and the bad (evil) fruit in the Book of Jeremiah. He said the “good figs” are those that go into captivity and the “evil figs” are those that remain, and that is picturing exactly what happened within the churches. The “good fruit,” or the true believers that had become truly saved, got out; they were led by the Spirit of God, just as God’s Spirit in the form of two angels visited Sodom prior to its destruction and they laid hold of the hand of Lot and led him out of the city. The “hand” points to the “will,” and God “touched” his will and made him willing to do so. That is what God does with all of His people; He, in a sense, took hold of our hand (our will) and He moved in us “to will and to do of his good pleasure,” and He laid it upon our hearts that we must get out of the congregations. Without exception, all the true believers got out, leaving the “evil fruit,” or those that had never become saved and, therefore, still in their sins. They were left in a place where there was no salvation.
Then, finally, the 23-year Great Tribulation period came to a close and God ended His salvation program by shutting the door to heaven and putting out the light of the Gospel. Yes, the judgment concluded which had been exclusively on the churches – that ended on May 21, 2011. But what happened was that all those that were in the churches (in such a bad spiritual situation where there was no latter rain) now found themselves in a world where the latter rain had stopped falling and the blessing of God through His Word had ended; the light that was brilliantly shining in an unparalleled way over the nations of the world had been darkened; the light of the candle was now quenched; the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride was silenced and would be “heard no more at all in thee.” So the inhabitants of the churches found themselves in an even worse spiritual condition because, this time, there was no remedy. Remember the proverb that the Lord gives in Proverbs 29:1:
He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
There are no more answers; there are no more delays; there are no more putting it off for another day – no more tomorrow. That is what God has finally done. He brought the judgment to the final end for those within the churches; they suffer “more stripes.” Their punishment is harsher and more severe than the rest of the unsaved people of the earth and that punishment is that when we entered into the Day of Judgment, it sealed their fate; their hope was gone. So, it is as though they were killed and they were killed by the two hundred million; that is, God has completed His salvation program and there is no one else to become saved. Yet, they cannot even look back to the days prior to May 21, 2011, and say, “Well, maybe God saved us before He shut the door to heaven.” No – they cannot say that. Why not? It is because they remained in the churches and God was not saving in the churches at that time. Therefore, their condition is different and far worse than the typical unsaved individual that was not part of a church. Since I mentioned it, let me just read Revelation, chapter 9, verses 18 and 20. It says in Revelation 9:18:
By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
Again, this is a re-emphasis that those in the churches are killed by the events that took place at the very beginning of Judgment Day. Then it goes on to say in Revelation 9:20:
And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
You see, it refers to the “rest of the men,” and who are they? They are the unsaved, obviously, because they continue to worship devils, and idols and they are unrepentant, but they are not a part of the churches; they are the agnostics, the atheists, the secularists, the individuals that never went to churches or whatever other religion they might be. The “third part” is only the Christian religion, but any other religion would be the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindu, or whatever other religion there may be; these are the “rest of the men” that were not killed by that particular plague.
That word “plague” is also the word “stripe” that God laid upon those that were called by His name; they should have known better, as they had more knowledge than the “rest of the men” and, therefore, they suffer a greater penalty. They experience more wrath and right away on May 21, 2011, their hope is gone. The only thing that God permits for someone who was in the corporate church when we entered into this period of time is that they may go to God in prayer: “O, Father, may this cup pass from this individual.” This was just as the Lord Jesus Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, while He was drinking the cup of the wrath of God. It is a fact that all those that remained in the churches have entered into judgment and are drinking “the cup of the wrath of God.” Therefore, God permits prayer for them or prayer by them. Yet, then we pray, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done,” just as Jesus prayed that prayer knowing what the Father’s will was for Him, we can pray, knowing the Father’s will at this time.
If we go back to Revelation 9:5, where it says, “And to them it was given that they should not kill them,” now we can understand that the locusts are dealing with mankind in general; their focus is not on killing the “third part.” God will deal with that later in the chapter and he will emphasize that the “third part” were killed. The “rest of men,” the majority of mankind, numbering about five billion people that are outside of “Christianity” and outside of that particular judgment (of having had their hope removed at the beginning of May 21, 2011), may continue to have that small “hope.” As we continue on, that hope may get smaller, but, nonetheless, it is a hope. And it is true that some hope is better than no hope; if someone has a little bit of hope, they are normally better off than an individual that has no possibility of hope. God is permitting some hope for those that were outside of the churches, living in the world, prior to the Day of Judgment. That is why He says that the locusts should not kill them; they are not killed as the “third part” was killed. Their hope has not been totally removed, as the hope of the “third part” has been removed. So they can hope that, possibly, God saved them when He was broadcasting the message of May 21, 2011, Judgment Day, to the world. They heard the Word of God – some more, some less. But the world heard and God was saving a great multitude out of the nations in those days leading up to that date. Therefore, there is a possibility that God may have saved me, if I was not in a church; or maybe God saved another person, no matter what they had believed. The person could have been very much against the Bible and against the things of God, but the hope is that maybe God did a “work” in them; and it does not require an individual’s consent or understanding or acknowledgement or willingness for God to do a work within someone. Just look at Saul of Tarsus as an example of that. He was on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians and the Lord Jesus Christ intervened and did a work in him. First, He struck Saul with blindness and then He draw him and then saved him within a very short period of time. God completely turned him around, so it is possible that God could do a work in anyone else outside of the churches. This is the hope that we have for our family, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers or anyone else. This is our hope in distributing tracts. We are here to “feed sheep,” and we can go to a street corner and hand out Gospel tracts and as we do, we can think, “Oh, maybe this one is one that God saved before He ended His program of salvation.” We can have that same thought and it is similar to the thought we had when it was still the day of salvation; we would think, “Oh, maybe this is one of God’s elect.” We had no idea who God would save or who His elect were; and now we have no idea who the sheep may be that He did save. It is very similar.
Let us continue on 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.
The word “torment” is used here three times. The first word “torment” (“that they should be tormented five months”) is Strong’s #928 and the last two uses of the word are Strong’s #929. They are very closely related. There are actually three words that are closely related: Strong’s #928, #929 and, I think, #931.
Let us look at this word that is Strong’s #928, where they should torment them (those that have not the seal of God in their foreheads) for five months. We find this word in Matthew 8 and I am going to read a few verses so we can see how it is used and also see a few translations to the English. It says in Matthew 8:6:
And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
Here, we get the picture of a man ill with the palsy and he is disturbed by the effects of that disease.
Also, it is used in Matthew 14:24:
But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
Here, the word “tossed” is a translation of the same Greek word, Strong’s #928. Do we see any similarity with the man grievously tormented with the palsy and the man tossed with the waves? Well, we can see the idea of a “discomfort,” or that which is not calm and peaceful, where someone is not comfortable at all. The man with the palsy was not “comfortable” and when waves start tossing about a ship, it would be a similar “discomfort,” we could say.
Also, it says in Mark 6:47-48:
And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And he saw them toiling in rowing…
The word “toiling” is the same word, Strong’s #928.
And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.
Now, again, one could go row a boat on a nice, calm sea and it may be strenuous, but it is relatively peaceful and enjoyable. But what if you are a tumultuous sea, where the wind is contrary and it would stir up the waves? You are trying hard to row and you are not having much success. Again, there is a “discomfort,” or an uncomfortable feeling, when we see this word used this way.
In 2nd Peter 2, we read of Lot (and, so, this word could be applied to a true believer), and it says in 2nd Peter 2:7:
And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
Here, it is the word “vexed.” When Lot was living in Sodom, it was a very wicked place and, of course, we can relate. We understand full well some of the sights and sounds Lot must have experienced; we see it every day today in our present, evil world. So Lot had a new “born again” soul and he had a desire to do the will of God. He had a desire toward righteousness and goodness. Yet, in seeing and hearing, his soul was “vexed.” It was in turmoil. It was troubled. It is just like the other examples; there was a discomfort and unease that took place within the soul of Lot.
We will stop here in this study. When we come back we will look at a couple more places where the Greek word translated as “torment” is found. Then we will go back to Revelation 9:5 and see how it fits and how God is using this word in the context of Judgment Day.