Revelation 9: God Loves Torture

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The Seven Trumpets [cont] (v. 1-21)

The fifth angel blew his trumpet which made a star fall to earth, which was a key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. The angel opened the pit, and smoke rose like that from a great furnace which darkened the air and blocked out the sun. Then locusts with the power of scorpions came out of the smoke. They were told not to harm grass, trees, or other plants, but only people without the seal of God. They were allowed to torment those people for 5 months but not kill them, those people will seek death but will not find it.

So now God has gone beyond killing people and he is torturing them. Why would he spend 5 months making them wish they were dead and not allowing them to die? I suppose this doesn't sound like such a bad thing to people who have rationalized the idea that their good god tortures people for all eternity, but to me this is something that could only be done by a complete monster.

Again, Guzik. The star that fell from heaven was probably an angel, perhaps Satan himself. About the locust "Their purpose and period is expressly governed by God, and the purpose of all this to bring repentance " I'm disgusted here.

A minor point as well, the locusts were told not to harm the grass, but all of the grass burned up last chapter.

The locusts looked like horses preparing for battle, they what looked like crowns of gold on their heads, they had human faces with women's hair, lions teeth, they had breastplates of iron and their wings made the noise of chariots rushing into battle. Their tails had the stings of scorpions.

Why even call them locusts?

"Why would God call them locusts if they are not literal locusts, but demonic spirits who swarm and destroy like locusts? Among other reasons, because locusts are agents of God’s judgment. This is a consistent Old Testament figure in passages like Exodus 10:4-14; Deuteronomy 28:38; 1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chronicles 7:13; Joel 1:4, and Amos 4:9."

The answer to the angel who is king of the bottomless pit, whose name is Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek.

This supposed to be hell right?

The sixth angel blew his trumpet and the "four angels who had been prepared for the hour" were released

Presumably this is the 4 horsemen

They had 200,000,000 troops with which they used to kill a third of mankind. They wore breastplates the color of fire, sapphire and sulfur, the heads of the horses were like lion's heads with fire, smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. The tails of the horses were like serpents.

I'm starting to think that John was high even if he had intended this to not be taken literally.

The remaining people did not repent of their works, they did not give up worshiping demons or idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood. They did not repent of their murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, or their thefts.

I guess the message here is that even under these extremes, non-Christians will still not give up their sinful ways or something. Basically this is just more demonizing of outsiders. 

Pretty much what I expected 

In general, mankind shows no repentance, despite the presence of some pretty overwhelming “signs and wonders.”

 I'm not really sure how I would react to seeing this kind of thing. I would never worship a God this terrible, but I would sure as hell pretend to if I thought it would save me.

It is amazing to see how quickly things return to “normal” after some calamity such as an earthquake. We are so quick to forget God’s lessons, even the lessons that come in judgment.

It's amazing to me that he would even compare the events described in Revelation to an earthquake. Natural phenomenon compared to demons set loose to kill a huge portion of the people on the planet.

What did we learn today?

Revelation 9:5-6 God loves Torture

"They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them."