Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #24 of Revelation, chapter 9, and we are going to be reading Revelation 9:10:

And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

If you have been following along, you realize that this is a continuation of the description of the locusts that were released by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Day of Judgment.  These locusts, as we have said repeatedly, are types and figures of God’s elect as God comes to judge the world and all the saints with Him.

Yet we do no deny and we do not try to avoid the difficult language found here that is describing these locusts.  Sometimes the language leads us in the direction of the enemies of God – it seems, at times, to be describing those that are not identified with the truth.  This is how it is with verse 10 of Revelation, chapter 9: “And they had tails like unto scorpions.” 

When we search the Bible for help in finding out what “tails” means, we quickly find that “tails” are associated with false prophets.  In Deuteronomy 28, God is describing the blessings of obedience, then following verse 15 to the end of the chapter, He goes into detail concerning the consequences of disobedience – the curses that come upon those that disobey His Word.  It says in Deuteronomy 28:13:

And JEHOVAH shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of JEHOVAH thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:

If you are obedient, then JEHOVAH will “make thee the head, and not the tail.”  A little further on in Deuteronomy, it says in Deuteronomy 28:43-44:

The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.

Again, at this point in the chapter, it is the “curses” of rebelling against God, so if you rebel against God, you are not going to be the head: “thou shalt be the tail.”  So, of course, none of this is saying anything good about the “tail.”

In Isaiah, chapter 9, God makes a statement that helps define, spiritually, the meaning of our word.  He says in Isaiah 9:13-14:

For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek JEHOVAH of hosts. Therefore JEHOVAH will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.

That definitely sums things up.  It is a Biblical definition, so when we look at the word “tail” we must consider Isaiah 9:14: “the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.”  So, once again, in our chapter in Revelation 9, we find locusts that are like unto scorpions and they had “tails” like scorpions and there were stings in their “tails.”  So there is nothing good there and we need to understand, as we search the Bible for the word “tail,” that it is somehow identifying with false prophets.

But, remember what we learned when we went to Luke 10?  We went to Luke 10 because of the language of “scorpions,” and scorpions (like the word “tail”) have negative connotations.  The word “scorpion” identifies with the enemies of God.  We read in Luke 10:17-19:

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Here, the Lord Jesus is identifying “serpents and scorpions” with the power of the enemy.  That is significant because of what we find in Revelation 9; we find locusts that are “like unto scorpions.”  Then later in the chapter there are the 200 million horsemen, and let us read about the description of them in Revelation 9:16-19:

And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. 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. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

Here, we find the parallel description of what God was saying earlier in the chapter; that is, the locusts that have “tails like unto scorpions” are, basically, just another picture of the 200 million horsemen that have “tails like unto serpents.”  They are describing the same truth.  In Luke 10, God is speaking of the power of the enemy and He speaks of them as “scorpions and serpents,” so, here, God breaks up that picture: 1) the locusts identify with the scorpions; and 2) the 200 million horsemen identify with the serpents. 

Okay, but why is God doing this?  We discussed this before and we have the answer to the reason why, but it is good for us to go over it again because when we do the typical comparing of Scriptures and we look up the words “tail” and “scorpions” and “serpents,” it leads us to “false prophets.”  Yet, the context is the Day of Judgment and what we have learned from the Bible concerning God’s program for Judgment Day is that it is not a time when Satan and his emissaries are victorious and are destroying all that is before them.  That was God’s program for the Great Tribulation to destroy the churches by empowering Satan and his forces to overcome the professed saints within the churches and congregations of the world.  That is not the same program for the judgment of all the world – now Satan is the object of wrath and, likewise, his forces (or emissaries) are the targets of the wrath of God. 

We realize that, but how does that help us to discern what God is saying here and to understand why the true believers (if, indeed, they are typified by locusts and 200 million horsemen) are associated with “serpents and scorpions” and “tails” that identify with false prophets?  Again, the answer is that what all false gospels and false prophets have in common is their gospel has no power to save.  It does not matter what particular error they stress or what particular false understanding they believe which leads people astray because there is a wide spectrum of false gospels out there.  But no matter what it is, they have one thing in common: they have never had the power to save.  God’s people have the true Gospel and they hold to the true Word of God and all through history, as God was accomplishing His salvation program by evangelizing the world to find the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the truth of the Word of God stood apart; it was vastly different from all the false gospels because God’s Word had the power to save, unlike all the rest.  So there was a big difference between the true Gospel (concerning the possibility of salvation) and all the false gospels. 

But in the Day of Judgment, the Lord brought judgment by closing the door to heaven, putting out the light of the Gospel and ending His salvation program.  He has saved everyone that was to be saved; there is no one left out anywhere in the world whose name was recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life and, therefore, the salvation program of God has come to a close.  Yet, it is God’s plan to leave His people in the world where they will continue to operate the same way; they will continue to study the Word of God, the Bible, and continue to share truth.  It is even God’s plan that they are to feed His sheep in this time of judgment and that requires that they share the things that they learn from the Word of God.  But, as they do so, there will be no salvation in their message.  There will be no salvation possible for the hearers of that message.  This is why they have “tails like unto scorpions.”  They are like unto all the false prophets or false gospels because now no one has any power to save through their message.  Even the true believers are lacking that power that had always been present, but now is removed because there is no one left to be saved.

Then it goes on to say in Revelation 9:10:

And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails…

The word translated as “stings” is the same word translated as “pricks” a couple of times.  We will read one example because both places are describing the same thing.  In Acts, chapter 9, we read of Saul who was journeying to Damascus to persecute Christians.  It says in Acts 9:3-5:

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

This is repeated in Acts, chapter 26.  The Apostle Paul is recounting what had happened, so he uses the same word.  This is the word “prick” or “pricks” and it is a translation of the same Greek word translated as “stings” in our verse: “there were stings in their tails,” or “pricks” in their tails.

What does this mean?  What was this “prick” that Saul of Tarsus was kicking against?  The language of “kicking” helps us to understand better what the Lord Jesus is saying, if we go to the Old Testament, in 1 Samuel 2:27-29:

And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith JEHOVAH, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?

Here, God is faulting Eli, the High Priest of Israel of that day, because he permitted his sons to do things contrary to the commandments of God concerning the sacrifices and offerings.  So, verse 29 of 1 Samuel 2 says, “Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering?”  That is a similar idea to Acts 9: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”  Here, the word “prick” or “sting” is added.  To “kick against the pricks” is language indicating that Saul is going contrary to the commandments of God and, therefore, the commandments of God would be the “pricks” or the “stings.”  That is related to what we read in 1 Corinthians 15:55-56:

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

Here, God is connecting the Law to the “sting of death.” That is because mankind breaks the Law of God and they violate and transgress the statutes and testimonies of God’s Word and, therefore, the “strength of sin is the law.”  It is through the Law of God we gain knowledge of sin.  It is through the breaking of the Law that one is “stung” by sin and will die as a result.  So this associates the Law of God, or the commandments of God, with the “sting,” and I think that allows us to understand that when it says, “they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails,” it is referring to the true believers who are bringing forth the truth of the Word of God, the Bible (as God opens up their understanding), and it is like a “sting” from the Law of God.  It is like “pricks” to those that hearing these things. 

It goes on to say at the end of Revelation 9:10:

… and their power was to hurt men five months.

Their power or authority was granted by God.  God’s people, typified by locusts and typified by the 200 million, are given authority.  We have authority.  We have God-given power to share these things from the Bible during the duration of Judgment Day, which is typified by the figure of “five months,” which we believe there is an excellent likelihood will be 1,600 days, concluding on October 7, 2015.  Yet, for the entire prolonged period of Judgment Day, beginning May 21, 2011 through October 7, 2015 (if we are correct), we have been granted power by God, just as the “beast” was given power to reign for forty two months during the duration of the Great Tribulation.  Now God’s people reign with Christ, who is ruling with a “rod of iron” in the Day of Judgment.  This is a result the will of God.