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The Book of Revelation - Part 22

20 Sep 2026 · this lesson on the church site

Taught by Dr. Keith Palmer, Grace Bible Church, Granbury, Texas — from the church’s Sunday School series on Revelation. These are lightly edited transcripts of the audio, posted for personal study; the teaching and its content belong to Dr. Palmer and Grace Bible Church. Listen to the originals and find his notes on the church website. Transcribed from the audio by AI. Edited only where the audio was unclear (all edits marked with *). Errors are possible — the recording is the authority.

Review of the Visions (00:00)

Let's come back to the book of Revelation. I know it's been a few weeks, so we're going to try to get our bearings, and then we'll see how far we get in our study today. The Revelation of Jesus Christ is the name of our book, and it's given to John. John has been receiving a series of visions. If you look up on the board here, I know you haven't seen this in a few weeks, but hopefully it looks familiar. This is our diagram of the chapters of Revelation, all 22 of them. These are the visions John sees successively, and this is the content of those visions. We've talked about the seven letters to the churches. The next section begins when John hears that he will be shown things that take place after these things. From chapter 4 on, these are the things that take place after the events of those seven churches. We are immediately taken to the throne room of heaven, where we see the One on the throne and the Lamb.

The Seventh Seal and the Trumpets (01:07)

We've learned about the scroll that unfolds these successive events of judgment upon the earth. Only the Lamb is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, and as those seals are broken by the Lamb, we see a series of judgments coming about. We're currently in the section that started in chapter 8, where the seventh seal is broken. I know you didn't plan to do math when you came to Sunday school today, but remember that the seventh seal unfolds a series of seven trumpets, and then, out of the seventh trumpet,* seven bowls. We find ourselves in the midst of those trumpets. So if you turn with me to Revelation 8, we've seen some of these trumpets blasted.

Remember that the seventh seal is made up of seven trumpets, and there are three so-called woes that happen in the midst of that, and then the seven bowl judgments. On your notes I've included some review of those first trumpets.

The First Four Trumpets (02:11)

The first trumpet blast begins in Revelation 8:7:

Again, you're seeing some of the imagery, thinking back to the exodus and the plagues. If you remember from a few weeks ago, we're actually seeing fulfillment of some of the prophecies from the Old Testament that looked forward to this coming day of the Lord. We'll look particularly at Joel 2 next time*, where we see some of this imagery.

Woe Announced and the Reading of Revelation 9:1-12* (04:18)

Revelation 8:13 says, "Then I looked and I heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a loud voice, 'Woe, woe, woe.'" That word woe announces judgment and destruction: "Woe to those who dwell on the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet."

That takes us to the fifth trumpet, Revelation 9:1, which is where we find ourselves today. Let's look at the text, briefly:

"Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth, and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them as the scorpions of the earth have power. And they were told not to hurt the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

"And they were not permitted to kill anyone but to torment for five months, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, and yet death will flee from them. The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. And on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. And they had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses rushing to battle. And they have tails like scorpions, and stings. And in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months. And they have a king over them, the angel of the abyss. And his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon. The first woe is past. Behold, two woes are still coming after these things."

The Fifth Trumpet (06:25)

We come back into our text here, and just when we thought the water couldn't get murkier or things couldn't get weirder or stranger, we have this fifth angel who blasts the fifth trumpet. Remember, we see the vision of the seven angels, the seven trumpeters, and each blasts the trumpet in succession. With each blast, there are cataclysmic, judgmental events taking place on the earth.

The Star and the Key (07:31)

John tells us he sees a star in this fifth trumpet blast, and a key is given to it. We have times in the Bible where stars are references to angels. You say, well, how do we know that versus actual stars, like physical stars in the cosmos? Usually the context makes that clear. We think that is probably what's going on here: an angel, with a parallel in Revelation 20:1-3. But this angel is distinct from the one mentioned in Revelation 9:11 because of the differences described for each of them.

So, without even looking at chapter 20, what's our first contextual clue that this star is probably representing something else? Look closely at the pronoun. A star appeared, and a key was given to him. That helps us know that this star may represent an angelic being, where the masculine pronoun would be more appropriate. And the key was given to him to open the bottomless pit, and he opened it.

The Bottomless Pit (08:31)

What is the bottomless pit? The word means abyss, as it's variously translated. It refers to an underworld, an area with no bottom, so "bottomless pit" is actually a fairly literal translation. If we study that phrase in Revelation, in chapters 9, 11, 17, and again in 20, we see that it always refers to a place of torment and imprisonment. This is a very particular area that John is seeing here.

Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna (09:32)

If we compare this with the way the New Testament uses the word, and even how the Greek word is translated when Old Testament passages are rendered into Greek, we discover that this bottomless pit, this abyss, is a reference to what we typically think of as the underworld, the place where departed souls go. In the Hebrew Old Testament we read of Sheol, which sometimes can just mean the grave, where people die, and sometimes refers to the underworld where departed souls go and reside. In the New Testament we think of:

All of these reference a place where departed souls go. We should talk about this sometime, because a transition takes place when Jesus rises from the dead. We understand that believers who died in the Old Testament, their souls went to be with the Lord at that time, so they no longer reside in this place, whereas unbelievers await their future judgment.

Remember the story Jesus told about the rich man and a man named Lazarus, not the Lazarus with Mary and Martha, but a different Lazarus? Both men died. The one Lazarus, the believer, is with Abraham, at Abraham's side, a place of paradise with the Lord. The rich man is in Hades, a place of torment. So you have two locations: one where believers reside awaiting the future resurrection, and one where unbelievers reside awaiting future judgment. Interestingly, Scripture always presents these as actual places.

Sometimes in our culture we think of hell as something to avoid by being a good person, but many don't* think of hell as a real place. Our culture sometimes talks about hell in a way that is joking or making light of it, as if it's fiction and not reality. The Bible never does that. The Bible always understands these places, in both Testaments, as actual places where departed souls reside. That's probably what we have referenced here with the bottomless pit, or the abyss.

John says he sees smoke arising as that abyss is unlocked, and the smoke darkens the sun and the air around it. We'll look at Joel 2 next time*, but there are some parallels in Joel's prophecy, especially in Joel 2 and again in chapter 3.

The Locusts (12:45)

Out of this bottomless pit, unlocked, comes smoke, and out of the smoke come locusts. Locusts are associated with God's judgment in the Old Testament multiple times, especially in the ten plagues of Egypt and other times of judgment. The difference here is that, unlike the locusts in Egypt, which were actual critters that attacked the land, John is quick to tell us that these locusts are not like your typical locusts. As he describes them, you're going, this is not what we had going on in Egypt, not quite the same thing. He says the appearance of them was "like horses prepared for battle."

Their Appearance and Their Weapon* (15:56)

He says later on the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses, horsemen rushing into battle. So think of one of those movies you've seen that goes back to the time of chariots and horses and medieval warfare. You have the sound of clanking chariots, rushing horses, hooves in the dust and smoke, and John says that's what this is like. That's what I'm hearing. That's what comes to mind when I see this image.

As he peers in closer, he recognizes that they don't have little locust heads. They have the faces of human beings, and they have little crowns on their heads, perhaps a symbol of their authority in terms of what they're about to do. They have hair like the hair of women, and we assume that meant longer hair or hair groomed in a way that a woman comes to mind. Yet they have teeth like a lion.

Are you getting the picture? Yeah, don't worry, we're going to give it to AI and let it do that. But this is like a nightmare. This is not something you look at and say, oh wow, look at the cute locusts. And that's the point. John is saying these creatures come and they're horrible. They're awesome in their appearance. They have breastplates like iron, and the sound of their wings is like chariots coming into battle. But John twice wants to point us not to their appearance, not to the sound they make, not to the details, but to their weapons.

These creatures come not with AKs or missiles or drone strikes. They come with stingers. Twice John compares them to scorpions, and scorpions sting. You ever got stung by a scorpion? What would you think about that? Not your favorite thing, right, Molly? Yeah, that's right.

My son Eric and I were out hunting with Brian Gaines a couple of weeks ago. Brian was up in the tree spotting hogs, Eric I think had the rifle, and all of a sudden it was like, boom! I don't know if it was a bee or what it was, but all of a sudden I had this pain. I thought I'd poked myself on some barbed wire, but then it started throbbing. It's pitch black, I can't see, and I don't know if it was a bee sting or something like that. But think of a scorpion sting, think of a bee sting, and now multiply that. Multiply not just the intensity but the frequency, because the text tells us that power was given to them for five months to hurt or torment men.

The Seal of God (18:10)

Notice the description here: those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. This is interesting. John understands that what's going on in this vision is consistent with some of his previous visions. If we look back to chapter 7, John identifies a group of 144,000 redeemed Jewish people who received a seal of God so that they could endure this judgment, probably to maintain their gospel witness to this generation as judgment unfolds.

John looks right back to that event and takes it quite literally. He says these are the people who will endure, because they have the seal of God on their foreheads. Everybody who does not have that seal is subject to the torment of these locust-like creatures. You say, what are these? Well, they could be symbolic of an army or some sort of judgment in history, but the description, the frequency, and the detail leave us thinking it sure seems like something quite unique. And they torment these men for five months. Torment, but not kill.

You say, how bad is it? You get a scorpion sting, you step on a scorpion, there you go, and it stings and hurts, but eventually it goes away. Whatever is going on here is repeated over and over again for five months, and it was so bad that people want to die, but they can't. For some reason they can't. This gets into the horror of it.

The King of the Abyss (20:12)

They have a king over them, a ruler. This is different, because locusts don't have rulers over them, but we've already seen that this is a different sort of creature. The king over them is the angel of the abyss, the messenger, the angelos. We know that word can describe holy angels, good angels, righteous angels, or demonic fallen angels, and perhaps that's what we have here, because the king's name, this angel over the abyss, is given in the Hebrew word for destruction and the Greek word for destruction. So this is the Destroyer. The Destroyer is coming: this angel, this demon, this supernatural ruler over these creatures, whatever it is.

John says the first woe is past, but there are two more coming, and we say, how much worse can this get? So here is a thought to take with you this week. Given the description of these creatures and their actions upon humanity, with the clear imagery that looks backward to Joel (we'll have to come back to that next time), it is extremely unlikely that these events represent normal human suffering or historic events that have already occurred. The imagery is pushing us into something quite unique. Even a generous symbolic reading, to me at least, does not seem to reconcile these events with anything we've seen in history.

Letting the Text Speak (21:21)

Let the text speak for itself. This bottomless pit is understood as a literal place. Physical pain is like the physical pain of scorpions. The five months: there's no contextual reason to take that symbolically here. Those who have the seal of God on their foreheads: that's consistent with a literal reading of Revelation 7. And references to things like:

are all understood in their normal, literal sense. The locusts are not literal locusts, but the text tells us they're not. As we've seen before, if the text wants us to understand something symbolically, it tells us that or shows us that in some way.

So again, we're trying to let the Bible speak for itself, let Revelation speak for itself, but this seems to be something quite unique, quite disturbing, quite unlike anything we've seen in history, even if we allow for some latitude of symbolism. Think about that, and let's remember that our point here is to stay true to our mission.

Okay, Father, thanks for your word. Thank you for the chance to unfold again the book of Revelation. These events are disturbing to us: the unfolding of your wrath and judgment on the earth, the unfolding of these creatures and these trumpet blasts, successive acts of judgment leading to the final judgment we will see. Father, we pray for your mercy, that men and women will repent while they have time. And we pray that we will do our part as gospel witnesses to help people know how they might be spared these coming events, not just bad things that happen on the earth, but certainly an eternity without you, an eternity of judgment. So Father, again, let these things clarify our mission and focus our energies. Might we be about your work of gospel witness this week? In Jesus' name, amen.

* = the audio was unclear here and the words were reconstructed from context. Scripture read aloud is in red.

Taught by Dr. Keith Palmer, Grace Bible Church, Granbury, Texas — from the church’s Sunday School series on Revelation. These are lightly edited transcripts of the audio, posted for personal study; the teaching and its content belong to Dr. Palmer and Grace Bible Church. Listen to the originals and find his notes on the church website. Transcribed from the audio by AI. Edited only where the audio was unclear (all edits marked with *). Errors are possible — the recording is the authority.

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