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Trumpet 5 (Revelation 9)
9:7 The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people's faces. 9:8 They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like those of lions. 9:9 They had breastplates, like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, or of many horses rushing to war. 9:10 They have tails like those of scorpions, and stings. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months. 9:11 They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is "Abaddon," but in Greek, he has the name "Apollyon."
9:12 The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.
The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war
This word translated shapes is one of the 'like' words we examined previously. It literally means likeness, something that connects back to the account of our own creation design.
God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (Genesis 1:26)
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. (Romans 1:22-23)
How much more clear could this be? These locusts act out very differently than the one symbolized by the humble Lamb. They portray God with symbols of horses preparing for war. Yet is this not the predominant sentiment across the world today, that God must show up as a powerful fighter in order to bring an end to all the chaos, mayhem and violence that is taking over and that threatens to bring the human race to extinction? These locusts – literally creeping things, along with the symbol of horses – four-footed animals, are what are embraced by a demonic way of viewing how God operates. This is what takes the place in the mind and thinking that exchanges the real truth about God with dark views contradictory to what the Lamb reveals.
Don't be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn't love his brother remains in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart of compassion against him, how does the love of God remain in him? My little children, let's not love in word only, neither with the tongue only, but in deed and truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and persuade our hearts before him, because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
Beloved, if our hearts don't condemn us, we have boldness toward God; and whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded. He who keeps his commandments remains in him, and he in him. By this we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us. (1 John 3:13-24)
What is beginning to emerge into the light for me here is that these locust beings are going to be hell bent on blocking God's people from having the holy boldness they need to fight against the powers of darkness and discouragement. They will do this by use of accusations in the heart, in the thoughts and imagination and in the psyche of each person, by stirring up all sorts of doubts about their worth, their identity and questions about how trustworthy God is to really be just what Jesus the Lamb has been revealing to them about His heart.
Of course there is no end to the resources and memories these demons can use to accuse us from the inside, but all of them are rooted in a false paradigm of where our true identity originates. This trumpet may well be describing a time of purification at the deepest level of the soul taking place in all who claim to be followers of the Lamb. This could be sorting out those who have resisting fully surrendering to adopting fully the motives and methods of the Lamb and those who will participate in the final round of the war on the side of the Lamb.
These locusts pouring out of the abyss are actually bring the abyss with them to bombard and assault all who have signed up to be special operation agents being prepared by the Lamb to launch His final assault against the kingdom of darkness. Ironically these locusts may be found inadvertently to be accomplishing the work of God in the hearts of the elect by compelling them to cling to the truth as it is in Jesus like never before until their hearts are so firmly established and locked into the truth about God and about their own identity that they finally break free of all feelings of condemnation.
This freedom however, will not be able to be experienced because they have finally achieved a level of total perfection of performance as many have imagined. No, not at all. Rather this freedom of heart will be the result of choosing to immerse themselves in the ravishing love of God despite their feelings, in choosing to believe the objective truth as is in Jesus despite all their doubts, misgivings and fears until their thinking and faith becomes so locked into the real truth about their identity and their dependence on God for everything that nothing else matters whatsoever to them.
It is now that we are forming our basis of belief that will determine the outcome of this testing time that may already be beginning. And it will involve what we choose to believe about how God will accomplish His victory over evil. Will God be required to resort to using methods like the enemy to conquer them by means of force, intimidation and raw power? Or will He forever maintain the posture and character of the violently slaughtered Lamb who is the emergent hero of the book of Revelation? How we choose to read and interpret prophecy and all of Scripture sets the direction of the development of our own character that will be exposed when these time of fiery testing will prove the nature of what we have chosen to use as our building materials in the foundation for our trust in God.
For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble; each man's work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man's work is. (1 Corinthians 3:11-13)
like horses prepared for war
This phrase is an abbreviated description of how these locusts strongly resemble what is described more in the next trumpet that is full of horses and riders involved in massive bloodshed. I believe it to be a precursor, an introduction to what is looming on the horizon that is about to happen as the second woe unfolds in the drama of this increasingly violent war. Because of this I find it useful to compare the nature of these counterfeits to descriptions both of other battle horses as well as descriptions of the originals the counterfeits mimic in their efforts to deceive. But we will examine that more fully in our study of the 6th trumpet.
