Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #21 of Revelation, chapter 9, and we are going to be reading at Revelation 9:7-9:

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.

I will stop reading there.  Once again, we are discussing the locusts and the Bible reveals through all the evidence where God describes the Day of Judgment as the day of the coming of the Lord with His saints, that the locusts are going forth in a destructive way in that Day of Judgment.

It is not the time when Satan and his forces are powerful and victorious.  They are not the ones that are bringing the destruction, but they are the ones that are being destroyed.  As we mentioned last time, they are now the targets of God’s wrath and the objects of His destruction.

So we saw these locusts had “crowns like gold,” and true believers also have crowns of gold.  Likewise, the Bible says that professed believers also have “crowns,” but God warns them that they could lose their crowns and, in fact, all those within the churches and congregations which did not hearken to God lost their crown when God came on Judgment Day.  It is language that points to a loss of salvation – of course, they never had salvation to begin with, but in their profession and belief, they did.  So God “goes along with” their understanding, although it was never truly the case.  Once Judgment Day came, all the tares in the churches were bundled for the fire and that is the point where it could be said that if they did wear a “crown,” it would have been removed from them.

But the locusts have “crowns like gold” and are representative of the true believers, and it goes on to say at the end of the verse in Revelation 9:7: 

… and their faces were as the faces of men.

This is the Greek word “anthropos,” and is the typical word for “men” in the plural tense.  Here, God is helping us to understand that these are not (literal) locusts.  These are not creatures, but they are representing men.  And, of course, they are men.  They represent God’s elect and God’s elect are people or men.

Let us go on to Revelation 9:8:

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

Now these are men that have “the hair of women.”  That sounds outlandish.  We cannot help but think rather negatively.  Is it indicating that these men are somehow distorting the natural order of things, because they have hair of women?  No – we must remember that God likens all His people – male and female – to a woman, the bride of Christ. 

The word, here, translated as “women” is also translated as “wives.”  It is the identical word that is used, at times, in the New Testament where God speaks of wives, like the “married wife.”  So these locusts are married to the Lord Jesus Christ – they are His bride.  They, therefore, have hair as women. 

“Hair,” as God speaks of it in the Bible, points to being under authority, as we read in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11.  Now this is a different Greek word for “hair,” but it is really giving us the idea of what it means to have “hair,” for a woman.  It says in 1 Corinthians 11:5:

But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

In the natural order of things, God has given a woman her “hair” for a covering and, yet, that is a picture of having one’s sins covered by the Lord Jesus Christ and having Christ as one’s head or authority.  It says that if a woman “prayeth or prophesieth (and that would be someone involved in getting the Gospel out) with her head uncovered,” she “dishonoureth her head,” and that is because Christ is not her covering and she, therefore, does not have the authority to go forth with the Word of God as she is doing and, therefore, it is even as if she were “shaven.”   It says, again, in verse 6: “For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.”  To be shorn or shaven would point to baldness or nakedness of the head and that would indicate she has no covering for her sin.  Her sins are exposed and that is why God is saying to make her head naked; it is to point to the fact that her sins are open before the eyes of God with whom she has to do.  God sees her sin and He is angry with her and, therefore, she is under the wrath of God.  So let her first be “covered” and then she can pray and prophesy; that is, let God first save a person, then go forth with the Gospel into the world.

We find similar language in the Book of Jeremiah.  It says in Jeremiah 7:28-29:

But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of JEHOVAH their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth. Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for JEHOVAH hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

Here, we see an historical example of what we just read in 1 Corinthians 11.  If you are not going to be covered by the blood of Christ (if you are not truly one of God’s people), then you are not obeying the voice of the Lord because you are still in your sin and, therefore, “Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem,” as that “hair” is a representation of what you are supposed to have in Christ, but you lack it.  Therefore, cut off your hair to make it publicly known and to make it clear to all. 

This is basically what God did when He ended the church age.  The “covering” of Christ in the midst of the congregations was removed, leaving the sins of the churches exposed, so God says, “Cut off thine hair.”  He made them “naked” and they were vulnerable to the wrath of God.  God had no more authority over them and offered no covering for their sins. 

So the loss of hair, or baldness, in a woman points to spiritual nakedness.  Now in Revelation 9, the locusts are men and, again, there is no problem with men possessing the hair of women because all of God’s people are likened to a bride and they have hair because the Lord Jesus is the covering.  So, they had “hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.”  The teeth of lions are what a lion would use to devour and to destroy.  A lion comes upon his prey and rips it with his claws and devours it with his teeth, so we find it says in Joel 1:6-7:

For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

In Joel, chapter 1, God is describing the judgment that began at the house of God, the judgment upon the churches of the world.   The nation that comes up upon His land whose teeth are “the teeth of a lion” is referring to Babylon, which is headed up by the King of Babylon, which would point to Satan and his emissaries.  Spiritually, it typifies the time when Christ loosed Satan out of the bottomless pit and he ascended up as the beast in Revelation 11; and it is said that he killed the two witnesses.  He came against the camp of the saints and judgment on the churches was under way and the churches and congregations of the world were as though they were devoured, by a lion with great teeth “whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.”  This lion is undoubtedly describing Satan who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour; and his emissaries would be cast in that same mold.  We know it applies to the wicked, because it says in Psalm 58:3:

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Then, in the same context of speaking of the wicked, it says in Psalm 58:6:

Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O JEHOVAH.

So Satan and his emissaries (just as the King of Babylon, historically, comes with the Babylonian army against the land of Judah, the people of God) come against the churches and Satan is like a devouring lion that is destroying the churches and congregations.  So, obviously, since this language is so clearly referring to Satan and his emissaries, would that not mean that the locusts are false prophets?  Are they the wicked emissaries of Satan?  Again, let me read Revelation 9:8:

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

But what we have to understand is that Judgment Day is the time when God turns the table on the kingdom of this world – the kingdom of Satan.  They had been the aggressor and oppressor.  They had been the devouring lions.  They had been used of God to wreak havoc and bring destruction.  They had, apparently, seemed to be strong as lions and their wickedness was so great in their ability to overcome the churches and multiply sin in the world.  We can certainly see how a “devouring lion” could typify them. 

But, you see, in Judgment Day, which Revelation 9 is describing, it is no longer the case that Satan is winning or that the forces of the enemy are winning.  Now it is reversed and that is what God is emphasizing in the Book of Jeremiah, in chapters 50 and 51, where we read of Babylon’s fall and of Babylon being the one that is pursued and destroyed.  Babylon is the object of God’s wrath and God even says several times in those chapters that it is because “it is the vengeance of his temple.”  As it says in Jeremiah 50:10-11:

And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith JEHOVAH. Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;

So God is now turning the table on Babylon; they have spoiled and now they are the “spoil.”  We read in Jeremiah 51:37-41:

And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions' whelps. In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith JEHOVAH. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats. How is Sheshach taken!

And “Sheshach” is another name for Babylon.

…and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!

Do you see what God said there, referring to Babylon?  It says in Jeremiah 51:40:

I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter…

Babylon is like “lambs to the slaughter.”  You see, that language normally would not apply to Babylon.  Normally, it would apply to true believers: we are like lambs to the slaughter.  The Lord Jesus was like a “lamb to the slaughter,” and we follow his example, but no longer, because now is the Day of Judgment.  Now Babylon is the one being slaughtered like a lamb; Babylon is the one being pursued by lions and God has turned His people into this destructive force. 

Again, this is all spiritual language.  You can look at God’s people and you see the poor older woman and the older man and the young child and, of course, they are no mighty army or devouring force, in a physical way.  But, spiritually, since God has saved all the elect, everyone He intended to save from the foundation of the world.  There are no more to be saved and that cold, hard truth from the Word of God is the primary means of God’s judgment.  It could only be because God has saved all of His elect, so that great multitude was saved and now there is no salvation for any other and that permits the shutting of the door, the putting out of the light of the sun and the turning off of the Gospel waters to evangelize unto salvation. 

All of these things result because of the saving of the last of the elect, and now the elect are a battle ax in God’s hands, a weapon He is wielding against the wicked which is destroying them, because it is declaring, “You are now guaranteed death.  You are filthy, spiritually, and you will remain filthy, spiritually.  The door is shut and no matter how long or hard or often you beseech, the door will not open.  Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.” 

There is an inability for those in Abraham’s bosom to pass from thence to them who are in torments.  We cannot even bring a drop of water, because all have been saved.  The Books are open.  The Book of Life is opened and it has been thoroughly searched; there are no further names to be found; there are no more lost sheep to be found.  This is the judgment that the locusts are bringing.  Then it goes on to say in Revelation 9:9:

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.

These verses are not easy.  Of course, it takes the vantage point of actually having lived in this Day of Judgment to see and understand some of these statements God is making.  This is a very difficult statement for us to understand because when we look up the word “breastplates,” we find that God speaks of righteousness as a breastplate, and faith and love as a breastplate.  We do not really read anywhere that it speaks of “breastplates of iron.”  When we look up the word “iron,” we find it often has a negative association.  Egypt was called an “iron furnace.”  Iron is that which is taken out of the ground, and so on, and, therefore, we would think it would identify with this earth.  So how could the locusts (if they are true believers) have breastplates of iron and what would that signify?

When we get together in our next Bible study, we are going to look more closely at the language of Revelation 9:9.  We will see how God actually has a very interesting thing to teach us in this verse and it fits in with everything else He has been speaking of in this chapter – that it is Judgment Day.  The “breastplates of iron” will confirm that grievous, sorrowful truth for all the unsaved.  Once again, it is Judgment Day.