Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #22 of Revelation, chapter 9, and we are going to be reading 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.

We are continuing to discuss the locusts, as God uses them to illustrate His teaching of Judgment Day.  We saw last time that it said they had “hair as the hair of women,” because God’s people are typified as the bride of Christ and hair is given to a woman for a covering.  When the corporate church was unfaithful and apostate to the commandments of God and they were falling away from truth, God said to Jerusalem of old, “Cut off thine hair,” and that applied to the New Testament churches and congregations.  He was commanding that they lose their covering because of their rebelliousness.  They may as well be shorn or shaven and have their heads exposed and their sins naked and open to God’s eyes because they were not behaving themselves as though Christ was their covering. 

So the locusts are said to have faces of men, hair of women and “teeth as the teeth of lions,” as God speaks of Satan and his emissaries coming against the people of God in exactly the same language in Joel, chapter 1, but now the “tables are turned.”  Now the aggressors and the ones that has been bringing the destruction (Satan and his kingdom, typified by the King of Babylon and Babylon)  are now the ones that are being oppressed and being destroyed by the Lord Jesus Christ and His army of the elect, which are here described as locusts.

Then when we get to verse 9, it is still describing the locusts, and it says in Revelation 9:9:

And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron…

Now this is a difficult thing for us to understand, because if the locusts represent true believers, why is it said that they have breastplates of iron?  Let us look up the word “breastplates” first, and then you will see our problem.  It says in Isaiah 59:16-17:

And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

This is a Messianic reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, but the idea of righteousness being a breastplate is also found in the New Testament in Ephesians, where God is describing the spiritual armour He equips His people with, in Ephesians 6:13-14:

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

Once again, the breastplate is identified with “righteousness.”  God also makes identification of the breastplate with other attributes.  It says in 1 Thessalonians 5:8:

But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

So we see that in both Ephesians 6:14 and in 1 Thessalonians 5:8, God is discussing true believers and they are to put on “spiritual armament” which will protect them.  In Ephesians, the breastplate is a breastplate of righteousness and, here, in 1 Thessalonians, it is a breastplate of faith and love.  Now these are the comments that God gives concerning the breastplate and the things He identifies with it.  We do not find “iron” in view at all, as we look up the word “breastplate” and search for language that God links to it.  So how can the locusts be true believers?  It does not say they are wearing a breastplate of righteousness or a breastplate of faith and love, but a breastplate of iron.

When we search the Bible for “iron,” there is a lot of language that is not good and which we would not normally identify with true believers.  It says in Deuteronomy 4:20:

But JEHOVAH hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.

The “iron furnace” is being used as a figure of this world or the kingdom of Satan, where unsaved men find themselves in bondage to sin and to Satan, so it is an “iron furnace,” and this is one way that God describes it.  As we continue to look up the word “iron,” we find in the Book of Job, in Job 28:2:

Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.

Again, as we search the Bible, we look for clue phrases and we look for God to define His own terms and to make a “tie-in” and, here, He does tie together “iron” and the “earth.”  That which is of the earth is “iron.”  Now at this point, we would really be thinking, “Well, since it is a breastplate of iron, it probably has to do with man’s own righteousness – with some sort of “work” that men do, and that would mean these locusts are false prophets, emissaries of Satan or anything but true believers.”  But we would be wrong.  God is continuing to typify the locusts as true believers, even with the “breastplates of iron.”  Well, how can we understand it then?

Let us go back to the references we have where it is very clear what is in view concerning the breastplate.  There is the “breastplate of righteousness,” we read in Ephesians 6:14, and the true believer is told to put on the “breastplate of righteousness.”  Why?  It says in I Corinthians 1:30:

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

Christ Jesus is “made unto us…righteousness.”  Therefore, to put on the “breastplate of righteousness” is to put on Christ.  Actually, when we look at the armour of God, as God describes it in Ephesians 6, the pieces of the armour all relate to Christ.  They all tie in to Him because He is our salvation, so where it speaks of the helmet of salvation, it would be Christ.  In Ephesians 6:14, it says, “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth,” and the Bible also says that Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life,” in John 14:6.  God is also that piece of armour.  Christ is the helmet.  Christ is the shield of faith, as the Bible speaks of the faith of Christ.  Christ is the sword of the Spirit, as it says, and the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God and He is the Word made flesh.  All the pieces of the armour lead back to Christ and, therefore, to have the “breastplate of righteousness,” one must have Christ.  Or, it could be put this way, we have the “breastplate of Christ.”

Remember the other reference in 1 Thessalonians 5:8:

But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love;

I just mentioned this a little earlier, but Christ is “faith.”  Whenever it comes to saving faith in the Bible, it is always (100% of the time) the Lord Jesus Christ that is in view and never man’s faith.  We are saved, according to Galatians 2:16, by the “faith of Christ,” and not by our own faith.  It was the faith He demonstrated and showed forth from the foundation of the world when He made atonement for the sins of His people and saved all the elect.  Therefore, put on the “breastplate of faith.”  Remember, in Hebrews 11, that chapter that speaks of the men of faith?  I do not know if you have ever tried this, but try reading through the chapter and substitute the name of Christ or Jesus every time it speaks of faith.  For instance, I am going to substitute the name of Christ for every time the word “faith” appears in Hebrews.  It says in Hebrews 11:4:

By Christ Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain…

In Hebrews 11:5:

By Christ Enoch was translated that he should not see death…

In Hebrews 11:7:

By Christ Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house…

In Hebrews 11:8:

By Christ Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed…

In Hebrews 11:11:

Through Christ also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.

It is all by Christ, again and again.  This is the One whose faith is in view.  Faith is Christ, so “putting on the breastplate of faith” is saying exactly the same thing as “putting on the breastplate of righteousness,” which is also Christ.  What about love?  We are to put on the breastplate of faith and love.  The Bible tells us that “God is love,” and the Lord Jesus Christ is God, so, therefore, put on the “breastplate of Christ,” or Eternal God.  We find that these attributes or characteristics of God – righteousness, faith and love – all are personified by the Lord Jesus Christ and really are pointing to Him.  He is our “breastplate” and He is, of course, an eternal, almighty Being with many glorious characteristics, so God emphasizes some of the most wonderful attributes when He is speaking of the “breastplate.” 

But, in Revelation 9, God is also speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ when He says, “And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron.”  Again, the “breastplate” is simply referring to Christ and whatever particular characteristic God wants to associate with it, He can.  He just showed us that He can call it “righteousness, faith or love,” but, here, He is calling it “iron.”  Or, to say it another way, He is identifying the Lord Jesus with “iron,” and why would God do that?  What is the purpose of that? 

Just like those other characteristics, it teaches us something about the Person of Christ – it is His righteousness, His work of faith, or His love (“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.”), and so on.  It teaches us something significant or important about the Lord Jesus Christ concerning His attributes or His Person.

But Revelation 9 is describing Judgment Day and what characteristic of God comes into view in the Day of Judgment?  Now that God is finished saving and bestowing His grace and mercy He has demonstrated throughout the history of the world by saving all those who He intended to save, it now comes time for the characteristics of His “wrath” to come into view – His justice, His judgment and the fierceness of His anger – in the day of fury, where God is going to show the just, righteous judgment of God against sin and against the sinners that have dared to rise up in rebellion against Him.

Remember that this day is a time when the Lord Jesus Christ is reigning.  The Bible says in Revelation 19:15:

And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Judgment Day is a time when Christ has defeated Satan and conquered the enemy army.  He is now the Supreme King of kings and LORD of Lords and he rules “with a rod of iron.”  So the breastplate of his army (of the elect) is taking on that particular characteristic and it is pointing to the fact that Christ and His Word have become as “iron” to the inhabitants of the world.   That would have in view, for instance, what we read in Ezekiel 4:3:

Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

This is describing God’s judgment on the churches.  He instructed Ezekiel to take an iron pan and set it as a wall between Ezekiel and the city.  Why did God do that?  I think this is really a commentary on what we read in Leviticus 26:18-20:

And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

Now if the heaven is “iron” when men are lifting up their prayers, are they going to reach God’s ears?  No – it is interrupted; there is an “iron” sky; there is an “iron” heaven that is preventing their prayers from reaching the Lord in heaven.  Just like now, we could say, there is “iron” in the heavens that is separating the prayers of all the unsaved – anyone that might attempt, by whatever means, to become saved and that might “seek death (in Christ)” and not able to find it, or anyone like the rich man in torments, in Luke 16, that wants just a drop of water.  Those prayers cannot get through.  They cannot pass through the “iron” that has taken over the heaven and these kinds of prayers cannot pass through it. 

This is all in view with the “breastplates of iron.”  The locusts are coming in the Day of Judgment with Christ, who is ruling with a “rod of iron,” and iron is a symbol of God’s wrath against the wicked.  It is an indicator that there will be no more salvation.