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Trumpet 5 (Revelation 9)
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.
their teeth were like those of lions
My soul is among lions. I lie among those who are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. (Psalms 57:4)
For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. (Joel 1:6)
They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations. They sacrificed to demons, which were no God, to gods that they didn't know, to new gods that came up of late, which your fathers didn't dread. Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.
Yahweh saw it, and abhorred them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. He said, I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in my anger, Burns to the lowest Sheol, Devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them. They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust. Outside the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers, terror; on both young man and virgin, The suckling with the gray-haired man. (Deuteronomy 32:16-25)
But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company. You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face. He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me. They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me. God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target. (Job 16:7-12)
I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame. Who can strip off his outer garment? Who shall come within his jaws? Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror. (Job 41:12-14)
I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother. I bowed down mourning, as one who mourns his mother. But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn't know it. They tore at me, and didn't cease. Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me. Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my soul from their destruction, my precious life from the lions. (Psalms 35:14-17)
The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord will laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming. (Psalms 37:12-13)
Do you indeed speak righteousness, silent ones? Do you judge blamelessly, you sons of men? No, in your heart you plot injustice. You measure out the violence of your hands in the earth. The wicked go astray from the womb. They are wayward as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a snake; like a deaf cobra that stops its ear, which doesn't listen to the voice of charmers, no matter how skillful the charmer may be. Break their teeth, God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth of the young lions, Yahweh. (Psalms 58:1-6)
If it had not been Yahweh who was on our side, let Israel now say, if it had not been Yahweh who was on our side, when men rose up against us; then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us; then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul; then the proud waters would have gone over our soul. Blessed be Yahweh, who has not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul has escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare. The snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of Yahweh, who made heaven and earth. (Psalms 124:1-8)
There is a generation that curses their father, and doesn't bless their mother. There is a generation that is pure in their own eyes, yet are not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes! Their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and their jaws like knives, to devour the poor from the earth, and the needy from among men.
(Proverbs 30:11-14)
All that pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it. Yahweh has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn of your adversaries. (Lamentations 2:15-17)
Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, "Peace!" and whoever doesn't provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him: "Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them." (Micah 3:5-6)
Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. (Acts 7:54)
They had breastplates, like breastplates of iron
Thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those who sat on them, having breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of lions. Out of their mouths proceed fire, smoke, and sulfur. (Revelation 9:17)
It happened from that time forth, that half of my servants worked in the work, and half of them held the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the coats of mail; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah. (Nehemiah 4:16)
These are the garments which they shall make: a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a coat of checker work, a turban, and a sash: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, and his sons, that he may minister to me in the priest's office. (Exodus 28:4)
He placed the breastplate on him; and in the breastplate he put the Urim and the Thummim. (Leviticus 8:8)
He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; and he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a mantle. (Isaiah 59:17)
Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, (Ephesians 6:14)
But let us, since we belong to the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and, for a helmet, the hope of salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5:8)
She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. Her child was caught up to God, and to his throne. (Revelation 12:5)
Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He treads the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty. (Revelation 19:15)
The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, because iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things; and as iron that crushes all these, shall it break in pieces and crush. (Daniel 2:40)
They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. (Daniel 5:4)
Yahweh was with Judah; and drove out the inhabitants of the hill country; for he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. (Judges 1:19)
Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles. The children of Israel cried to Yahweh: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. (Judges 4:2-3)
(for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron); (1 Kings 8:51)
They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly. (Jeremiah 6:28)
Iron is unusually heavy to be used in a breastplate. Breastplates represent defensiveness, and an iron breastplate could represent hardness of heart, the opposite of the spirit of openness and vulnerability needed to thrive in God's family. This last verse may be the best key for understanding the nature of what this symbol is seeking to convey to us. To wear a defensive plate of iron over the heart involves a corrupted and corrupting spirit of deceitfulness and exploitation. This is the work of Satan and all his agents whose greatest motivation is to deceive, corrupt and deface the image of God in mankind.
Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be quickly shaken in your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as from us, saying that the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. [Where is the temple of God? It is the hearts and minds of those who are created for His glory as dwelling places for Him to reign in and through them. This is what the war is over, the capture of our heart affections and allegiance.]
Don't you remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things? Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. [What is his own season? It is the hour of darkness Jesus talked about when He was arrested for His trial. This will be repeated in the lives of His final special ops forces near the end as this smoke released from the abyss of darkness that distills locusts that bring torment, darkens the sun and the atmosphere bringing the entire world into its final hour of darkness, culminating in the externalization of the great deceiver. By the light of reflected love by God's saints during this hour of darkness, the truth about God will be exposed as will the true nature of evil by contrast, just as Satan was exposed by the responses of Jesus through humility and love for His enemies under all the assaults against Him leading up to His death on the cross.] For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; [The breath of Jesus is represented as a sword of truth in His mouth, the truth about God, not to inflict harm but to only bring the light of truth about love that always results in judgment – exposing the lies of the enemy. The Lord (true authority to define identity) kills and destroys in righteousness, not according to the kind of killing and destroying the devil does. Rather Jesus makes of no effect the power of the devil which is the power of our fear of death] even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn't receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. [What we may be looking at here in the 5th trumpet may well be this very activity – massive deception on a global scale through intimidation, supernatural manifestations and exercises of power all designed to misrepresent God as being more like the enemy than like Jesus. Deception of wickedness is not merely open, blatant wickedness but may be so well camouflaged that it has the compelling appearance of religious truth. This is why it is called deception, for the only thing lacking in it is true agape love that alone has power to transform the heart from the inside out.]
Because of this, God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who didn't believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. [Does this mean God is the source and cause of their unbelief in the truth? When language like this is used, be careful not to fall into the trap of accusing God of being the source of evil and deception. This is about authority, for when a person rejects the truth of God's loving kindness and mercy completely, they throw off His authority and cannot be recovered because they have fully given over their authority to The Lie. The principle of love requires God to respect their final choice and to release His protective shield from around them, giving the power of lies full access to lock them in blindness without restraint of mercy. Do not blame God as being the cause of this condition. When the light of love exposes the truth about this condition, judgment is the result as it is fully revealed that the real cause of their being lost is their own choice to reject the truths brought to them, choosing instead to indulge in addictions and lies that bring pleasure from sin in place of peace and joy in loving the truth.]
But we are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth; to which he called you through our Good News, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. [What is the glory of Christ? It is God's character of passionate, selfless, unrelenting love in the face of evil and sinister darkness. When Christ's character is fully reflected and sealed into the lives of His children through their willing and full submission to be transformed and sanctified by His Spirit, they are matured into the same likeness of character and beauty that Jesus completed during His life on earth as a willingly obedient Son reflecting His Father's love under extreme duress.] So then, brothers, stand firm, and hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word, or by letter. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-17)
It is important to not lose the larger perspective while immersed in these prophecies that describe so much darkness and deception. We need to remind ourselves why all this will transpire and why God gave us these insights lest we succumb to the spirit of fear while learning about the details.
