7 Trumpets of REVELATION SERIES: FIFTH Trumpet

Then the fifth angel sounded: 

And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. 

To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. 

And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. 

So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit [even greater darkness than the fourth trumpet].  

Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth.
And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.  

They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.  

And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.  

The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.  

They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. 

They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails [the tail represents lies]. Their power was to hurt men five months.  And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. 

Revelation 9:1-12 

And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound! 

Revelation 8:13

When the fourth trumpet has blown, 

there is an announcement of three woes to come.

The key to understanding the fifth trumpet is in the details of Revelation 9.
A fallen star rises from the bottomless pit and his name is Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek. Both of these words mean ‘the destroyer’.

--This star is the leader of a vast host of locusts who have the tails of scorpions that come out of the bottomless pit and cause a dense darkness.
--This star did not fall at the time of the fifth trumpet. There is a distinction between Revelation 8:10 where John saw a star fall (second aorist, active, indicative in Greek) from heaven and Revelation 9:1 where the NIV correctly translates the tense of the verb (perfect, active participle), ‘I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth.” That is to say, this star had already fallen when the fifth trumpet sounded.
Revelation 11 explains the chronological time frame when the shaft of the abyss was opened during the fifth trumpet to release this hoard of demons:

“According to the words of the prophet, then, a little before the year 1798 some power of satanic origin and character 

would rise to make war upon the Bible. 

And in the land where the testimony of God's two witnesses should thus be silenced, there would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh and the licentiousness of Sodom.” E.G.W.

A striking parallel to what occurred in France transpired in the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jewish nation rejected the light and embraced the darkness (see John 1:5-11):

“Then God withdrew His protection from them and removed His restraining power from Satan and his angels, and the nation was left to the control of the leader she had chosen. Her children had spurned the grace of Christ, which would have enabled them to subdue their evil impulses, and now these became the conquerors. Satan aroused the fiercest and most debased passions of the soul. Men did not reason; they were beyond reason—controlled by impulse and blind rage. They became satanic in their cruelty. In the family and in the nation, among the highest and the lowest classes alike, there was suspicion, envy, hatred, strife, rebellion, murder. 

The Jews had accepted false testimony to condemn the innocent Son of God. Now false accusations made their own lives uncertain. By

their actions, they had long been saying cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.’ Isaiah 30:11. Now God granted their desire. The fear of God no longer disturbed them. Satan was at the head of the nation, and the highest civil and religious authorities were under his sway. When France publicly rejected God and set aside the Bible, wicked men and spirits of darkness exulted in their attainment of the object so long desired—a kingdom free from the restraints of the law of God . . . Centuries of apostasy [the fourth trumpet] and crime had been treasuring up wrath against the day of retribution; and when their iniquity was full, the despisers of God learned too late that it is a fearful thing to have worn out the divine patience. France was shaken as if by an earthquake. Religion, law, social order, the family, the state, and the church were smitten down by the impious hand that had been lifted against the law of God.” 

E.G.W.

The tense of the verb ‘had fallen’ clearly indicates that the star did not fall when the fifth trumpet blew. It had already fallen before the fifth trumpet
Q: How else could the star come out of the Abyss unless it had fallen into the abyss before?

When the ‘star’ (notice that the star is a ‘he’) opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a massive furnace. The smoke eclipsed the sun and the sky. There is no indication that the smoke eclipsed only a third part of the earth (as in the fourth trumpet)—the text seems to indicate that the darkness was total!
When the shaft of the abyss opens, ‘all hell breaks loose.’ 

As we have previously seen when we studied the fourth trumpet, the sun (the greater light) is a symbol of Jesus and the moon (the lesser light) is a symbol of the Scriptures that give witness to Him. The partial darkness of the fourth trumpet (when the two witnesses prophesied in sackcloth or obscurity) becomes complete darkness in the fifth trumpet. A comparison of verse 2 with Exodus 10:15 seems to indicate that the smoke was really composed of a huge cloud of locusts that eclipsed the sun.

France had the bright light of the reformation and rejected it and the result was a great darkness.
It is also significant that Daniel 11:40 describes the king of the south (atheism, spiritual Egypt) rising against the king of the north (apostate Christianity, the papacy) at the beginning of the time of the end (1798). 

--This attack of the king of the south against the king of the north is a depiction of the French Revolution. 

Thus, the fifth trumpet (Revelation 9:1-12), Revelation 11:7-10 and Daniel 11:40 are all describing the same historical event: 

The French Revolution.

Revelation 9:11 tells us that this cloud of locusts had a king who led them whose name was Abbadon or Apollyon. Normal locusts have no king over them (Proverbs 30:27) so these must be unusual and supernatural locusts.
*Some interpreters have seen in this plague of locusts a depiction of the devastations caused by Mohammed and the Muslims in Arabia. 

--However, in his commentary on the book of Revelation Seiss provides a multiplicity of reasons why this interpretation cannot be accurate: “Nor yet will this vision apply, except in a very dim and imperfect way, to the mighty Saracenic invasion, in which so many moderns locate its fulfillment. 

--If Muhammed was this star, it is impossible to show wherein he experienced the fall ascribed to this star. 

--If he was the star, he was also the king of the powers he set in motion; but the record plainly shows that the star and the king of the locusts are two distinct personages. 

--If the cave of Hera was the mouth of the pit, the followers of Muhammed did not come out of that cave, as the locusts are said to come out of the abyss. 

--If his flight from Mecca was his fall, then the pit was open and the smoke had begun to issue and breed locusts before the star's fall, which is again contrary to the record. 

--If the smoke were Muhammed's false doctrines, then neither smoke nor locusts existed before the pit was opened, for the Arabians were not Muslims before Muhammed, but the vision represents the locusts as dwelling in the pit and in the smoke long ere the pit was opened or the smoke issued. 

--The locusts were forbidden to touch anyone upon whose forehead the seal of God was impressed; but the wrath and fury of the Muslim hordes were directed mainly and above all against Christians and Christendom. 
--The locusts were in shape like horses, prepared for war; Muslims had this appearance no more than any other armed hosts. 

--The locusts wore seeming golden crowns; but ‘turbans of linen’ very poorly meet the description, while, if the creatures are symbolical, the crowns are symbolical also. 

Q: What, then, is the prophetic import of a turban? 

A: The locusts had breastplates, which are said to be symbols of invulnerability; but the Muslims were not invulnerable; they never went into battle without losing some of their number, and they were more than once defeated with great slaughter. 

--The locusts have wings, and tails, and stings in their tails, and poison in their stings like the poison of scorpions; but, in no respect was this true of the Muslims, any more than of any other conquering hordes. 

--The locusts have power to operate only for the space of ‘five months’—on the year-day theory, one hundred and fifty years—but the warlike expeditions of the Saracens ranged through more than four hundred years, and their power is not yet taken away.

--The king of the locusts is named Abaddon and Apollyon, but neither of these was the name of the Muslim prophet, nor do they describe him anymore than many others who have acted a like part in the world. 

--Smoke may very well represent false doctrine, but what was the sun and air obscured by Mohammedanism, when those who see only Mohammedanism in this vision are obliged to consider the Christianity and churches which the Saracens overrun, as even worse than Islamism itself? 

--Besides, if Arabia, whence the Saracens came, is the well-pit of the abyss, as some seem to affirm, then it is into Arabia that the Devil is to be cast, and shut up, and sealed in, for the thousand years, if not also the place into which all the finally lost are to be consigned!” Joseph Seiss, The Apocalypse: Exposition of the Book of Revelation, Electronic Database.

*These locusts are clearly symbolic because they are a hybrid combination of locust and scorpion and they attack people, not plants. According to Jesus, the scorpion represents Satan (Luke 10:18, 19). The most dangerous body part of a scorpion is its tail and the tail represents lies (Isaiah 9:15; John 8:44). 

*This is why Satan’s tail drew a third part of the angels and cast them to the earth (Revelation 12:4).

--In brief, this army has all the Biblical characteristics that apply to Satan and his angels: scorpions, serpents, lions, locusts, sulphur, bottomless pit, etc. The fifth trumpet is clearly a description of an extraordinary manifestation of satanic power.

--Applying the year/day principle, the five months would be equivalent to one hundred and fifty years. Notably the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment began in the early 17th century with the work of Rene Descartes: Contemporary, Blaise Pascal wrote: ‘I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flip of His thumb; after that he had no more use for God."
Descartes’ most famous book was A Discourse on Method, published in 1637 some 150 years before the beginning of the French Revolution. The Age of Reason eventually jettisoned the need for faith and the miraculous in religion. It supplanted faith in God with human wisdom.  

The Age of Reason inspired the French Revolution.

--In Scripture the tail represents lies (Revelation 12:7-9; John 8:44; Isaiah 9:15). 

===It is significant that during the 1260 years, Satan deceived people by the lie of false religion (false God) 

===but during the age of reason Satan deceived and hurt people by the lies of secularism (no God).

--The king who rules over the locusts is the angel of the Abyss, and his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon. The names Abaddon and Apollyon mean “destroyer.” The New Testament describes Satan as the ruler or prince of demons (Matthew 12:24) and Jesus referred to him as the ‘destroyer’ (John 10:10). This means that the locusts represent Satan’s angels.

The devil carries on his designs by blinding the eyes of men, 

by extinguishing light and knowledge, 

and promoting ignorance and error. 

He first deceives men, and then destroys them. 

Drawn/taken from the book Daniel & Revelation by Uriah Smith---Study Guide by Stephen Bohr---Sermon by Walter Veith---Commentaries from Matthew Henry/Adam Clark---Revelation Made Clear