12. The Tribulation People
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Revelation 8:13 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!”
We left off with the masses of lost people living during the tribulation, experiencing warfare, starvation, ecological discomforts, dramatic plagues brought on by the two witnesses. They were also hearing promises of good news by kingdoms of this world moving toward globalism. They were hearing promises of world peace. But they were also frustrated by so many seeming obstacles to peace, especially from the resistant believers, refusing to recognize the greatness of the plans to bring the world under one government, one leader.
We read about the judgments of God affecting the entire world. For at least one complete summer there was no green grass left anywhere.
As we read in Revelation 8:3, three ‘woes’ to the earth are coming as the next three trumpets are sounded by angels in heaven.
Here is the first ‘Woe’ that the people of the world experience.
1 ¶ 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.
2 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.
3 Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
4 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.
5 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.
6 In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.
7 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.
8 They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.
9 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.
10 They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months.
11 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.
12 One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.
Notice that the green grass is back. At least one season with global drought has passed. This is likely the fifth or sixth year of the tribulation.
And now, for five months the unsaved masses of people are being bitten by unearthly creatures. The ‘sting’ is so severe that people just wish they could die. And this is happening during the time that the Man of Sin is desperately trying to bring to the world his plans for a wonderful world.
These creatures are released from the bottomless pit. Most translations use the word ‘abyss’, however, that doesn’t explain anything. Abyss is an anglicized version of ‘abussos’, from the Greek language. Its meaning very literally is bottomless pit. Why change it to abyss? That is partly due to the weakness of our human intellect and reasoning. We think, “How silly of the people back then to imagine that something could actually have no bottom!!” We are so much smarter today. Well not really.
The bottomless pit and hell are one and the same, or at least are adjacent to one another.
Hell is down. Here are just a few references that support this.
Luke 10.15 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
Pr 15:24 The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.
Isa 14.12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 “Those who see you will gaze at you, And consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms,
De 32:22 For a fire is kindled by my anger, And shall burn to the lowest hell;
Paradise was in the center of the earth … or a compartment there, at one time, but Jesus moved it up to heaven along with all the old testament believers .
He spent three days in that underworld before he ascended to heaven.
Eph 4.9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
Mt 12:40 “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
In the centre of the earth, every direction a person could point would be up. There is no ‘down’. There is no bottom.
So from the bottomless pit a horde of locust-like creatures are released. Perhaps in their insane anger they want to destroy everyone, but they are unable to affect any believers. Believers have the seal of God ‘on their foreheads’. The Seal of God is the Holy Spirit within the believer, but somehow, invisibly or symbolically, is identified in the forehead.
Why does God do this to the masses of unsaved people over the earth? Apparently there are still some who have not taken his mark or number. And as we will see in the next verses, God is holding them guilty for not repenting of their sinful ways.
A second ‘woe’ is about to fall on the world. I suppose the vicious creatures of the past five months have somehow subsided and gone back down into the bottomless pit.
If you think those scorpion-like creatures were a terrible plague on the unsaved world, just look what happens next.
13 ¶ Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The description of the timing is the reverse of the way we would normally state it; from the general down to the specific. We are given no hint as to why these particular angels have been bound here and for how long. These must be ‘fallen’ angels. We normally think of Satan as being in charge of his angels, but in this case it is obviously God who has had them bound here. God arranges to have them kill a specified number of people. Next we get a description of the army that is led by these four angels.
16 Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone.
The army must also be fallen angels, but the horses are creatures not seen on earth nor ever even heard of before.
18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed — by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.
19 For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they do harm.
20 But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.
21 And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Since repentance is basically zero, I think we must assume that all the survivors are unsaved individuals who have accepted the mark of the beast. I detect a ‘hardness of heart’ in these people. I believe they detest God and anything that is associated with Him. They are devoted followers of antichrist, haters of the two witnesses, and blaming Christians and God for not allowing their ‘wonderful’ leader to implement the wonderful earth that they so desire.
It is my understanding that the seven bowls of God’s wrath have been poured out, one at a time, as the trumpets number five and six have sounded.
Let’s take a look at them and discover what God has been doing to the unsaved masses of people and for what purpose.
Rev 16:1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.”
2 So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.
During the effects that took place after trumpet five was sounded, (that is, the release of the scorpion-like creatures that made men so sick they wanted to die, but couldn’t,) these same people break out in terrible four-smelling sores. Perhaps, and in my opinion, likely, these sores are a result of the stings inflicted by the scorpion creatures.
Our God of love and justice is using every means to reach those who can still be reached, those who have not taken the mark.
3 Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.
We remember that earlier one third of the seas became blood. The timing of this event is very near to the end of the tribulation. This time ALL the seas become blood and ALL the sea creatures die. This is so incredibly hard to grasp. All sea commerce is halted until the waters clear up.
With billions of sea creatures decaying, this adds to the misery of the loathsome sores they are still trying to heal from. This adds to their hatred of Christians who are completely unaffected by the sores. But with the seas having turned to blood, with all of sea life dead, this affects Christians as well. The commerce interruption, the lack of food supply that comes from the ocean, will affect them equally.
4 Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.
It was at the sounding of the third trumpet that the fresh waters became bitter Wormwood. This is something else. I see this as happening quite a bit later than the Wormwood episode. At this point in the tribulation many believers have been martyred. This is why John writes, 5 And I heard the angel of the waters saying: “You are righteous, O Lord, The One who is and who was and who is to be, Because You have judged these things.
6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, And You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due.”
7 And I heard another from the altar saying, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.”
Satan, in his extreme anger, is killing all the believers that he can find. Antichrist is completely unable to create his utopian world and he is blaming Christians. The Pharisees of Jesus’ earthly ministry days could not deny the miracles which Jesus was doing. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead … and instead becoming convinced that Jesus was the Christ, they plotted to kill Lazarus. A hardened and twisted human cannot think rationally.
The masses of unbelievers have suffered polluted oceans and fresh waters, they have been inflicted with sores. They have been maddened by the actions of the two witnesses. And now they have blood to drink. What next? Can it get any worse for them?
The sixth angel has sounded his trumpet and one third of the remaining population of unbelievers are killed.
The remaining ones are suffering with ugly sores and blood to drink.
Now the fifth bowl of God’s wrath is poured upon them.
8 ¶ Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.
This is global warming at its worst. I am not sure how any living tribulation believers can endure this. This is God’s wrath on unbelievers. Up to now, various plagues have been affecting only unbelievers. I am not sure how God will prevent the heat from scorching His own children. If there would be anything a person could do to minimize this, if they had been given advance warning, the tribulation believers would be the ones to have prepared for it.
The time of the tribulation, as far as the believers are concerned, is coming to a close. The sixth bowl of God’s anger is about to be poured out.
The antichrist has not had a reign like he hoped for. He has political unrest in his ‘kingdom’. The next bowl of God’s wrath is a problem for the antichrist.
12 ¶ Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14 For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
As much as we have been told, or led to believe, that the antichrist is a sole world leader, we have to adjust our thinking. Kings … plural, will be ‘spirit lead’ to a summit in Israel. They are coming to face off with antichrist's army and with the kings coming from the East.
But before that group assembles, the antichrist will merge his massive army with the armies of ten other kings, and he will remove a source of irritation that has affected and limited him greatly. He has not had the freedom to do as he pleased, at least not totally, because of the woman on his back.
He decides to do something about it … But first we read this.
15 “Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.”
Jesus raptures all of the remaining tribulation believers right here at this point.
The masses of unbelievers have been blaming the Christians, the two witnesses, the hundred forty-four thousand Christian/Jewish missionaries for all of the ecological troubles, for the pain of locust creatures, for the blistering sun, for the destruction of their oceans … and suddenly, they are gone. As best they can in the miserable environment that they are living in, they rejoice, first at the death of the two witnesses … and then at their being caught up to heaven along with all those Jesus takes at this ‘thief in the night’ rapture.
Next time we will look at the identity of the woman on the back of the beast, the antichrist and his system.
Following that, a close look at Daniel’s overview of the last seven years.
Then, possibly concluding with a session that could be a little bit technical in nature, showing why I believe the church and Israel must coexist in Daniel’s seventieth week.
We left off with the masses of lost people living during the tribulation, experiencing warfare, starvation, ecological discomforts, dramatic plagues brought on by the two witnesses. They were also hearing promises of good news by kingdoms of this world moving toward globalism. They were hearing promises of world peace. But they were also frustrated by so many seeming obstacles to peace, especially from the resistant believers, refusing to recognize the greatness of the plans to bring the world under one government, one leader.
We read about the judgments of God affecting the entire world. For at least one complete summer there was no green grass left anywhere.
As we read in Revelation 8:3, three ‘woes’ to the earth are coming as the next three trumpets are sounded by angels in heaven.
Here is the first ‘Woe’ that the people of the world experience.
1 ¶ 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.
2 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.
3 Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
4 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.
5 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.
6 In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.
7 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.
8 They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.
9 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.
10 They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months.
11 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.
12 One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.
Notice that the green grass is back. At least one season with global drought has passed. This is likely the fifth or sixth year of the tribulation.
And now, for five months the unsaved masses of people are being bitten by unearthly creatures. The ‘sting’ is so severe that people just wish they could die. And this is happening during the time that the Man of Sin is desperately trying to bring to the world his plans for a wonderful world.
These creatures are released from the bottomless pit. Most translations use the word ‘abyss’, however, that doesn’t explain anything. Abyss is an anglicized version of ‘abussos’, from the Greek language. Its meaning very literally is bottomless pit. Why change it to abyss? That is partly due to the weakness of our human intellect and reasoning. We think, “How silly of the people back then to imagine that something could actually have no bottom!!” We are so much smarter today. Well not really.
The bottomless pit and hell are one and the same, or at least are adjacent to one another.
Hell is down. Here are just a few references that support this.
Luke 10.15 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
Pr 15:24 The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.
Isa 14.12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 “Those who see you will gaze at you, And consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms,
De 32:22 For a fire is kindled by my anger, And shall burn to the lowest hell;
Paradise was in the center of the earth … or a compartment there, at one time, but Jesus moved it up to heaven along with all the old testament believers .
He spent three days in that underworld before he ascended to heaven.
Eph 4.9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
Mt 12:40 “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
In the centre of the earth, every direction a person could point would be up. There is no ‘down’. There is no bottom.
So from the bottomless pit a horde of locust-like creatures are released. Perhaps in their insane anger they want to destroy everyone, but they are unable to affect any believers. Believers have the seal of God ‘on their foreheads’. The Seal of God is the Holy Spirit within the believer, but somehow, invisibly or symbolically, is identified in the forehead.
Why does God do this to the masses of unsaved people over the earth? Apparently there are still some who have not taken his mark or number. And as we will see in the next verses, God is holding them guilty for not repenting of their sinful ways.
A second ‘woe’ is about to fall on the world. I suppose the vicious creatures of the past five months have somehow subsided and gone back down into the bottomless pit.
If you think those scorpion-like creatures were a terrible plague on the unsaved world, just look what happens next.
13 ¶ Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The description of the timing is the reverse of the way we would normally state it; from the general down to the specific. We are given no hint as to why these particular angels have been bound here and for how long. These must be ‘fallen’ angels. We normally think of Satan as being in charge of his angels, but in this case it is obviously God who has had them bound here. God arranges to have them kill a specified number of people. Next we get a description of the army that is led by these four angels.
16 Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone.
The army must also be fallen angels, but the horses are creatures not seen on earth nor ever even heard of before.
18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed — by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.
19 For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they do harm.
20 But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.
21 And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Since repentance is basically zero, I think we must assume that all the survivors are unsaved individuals who have accepted the mark of the beast. I detect a ‘hardness of heart’ in these people. I believe they detest God and anything that is associated with Him. They are devoted followers of antichrist, haters of the two witnesses, and blaming Christians and God for not allowing their ‘wonderful’ leader to implement the wonderful earth that they so desire.
It is my understanding that the seven bowls of God’s wrath have been poured out, one at a time, as the trumpets number five and six have sounded.
Let’s take a look at them and discover what God has been doing to the unsaved masses of people and for what purpose.
Rev 16:1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.”
2 So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.
During the effects that took place after trumpet five was sounded, (that is, the release of the scorpion-like creatures that made men so sick they wanted to die, but couldn’t,) these same people break out in terrible four-smelling sores. Perhaps, and in my opinion, likely, these sores are a result of the stings inflicted by the scorpion creatures.
Our God of love and justice is using every means to reach those who can still be reached, those who have not taken the mark.
3 Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.
We remember that earlier one third of the seas became blood. The timing of this event is very near to the end of the tribulation. This time ALL the seas become blood and ALL the sea creatures die. This is so incredibly hard to grasp. All sea commerce is halted until the waters clear up.
With billions of sea creatures decaying, this adds to the misery of the loathsome sores they are still trying to heal from. This adds to their hatred of Christians who are completely unaffected by the sores. But with the seas having turned to blood, with all of sea life dead, this affects Christians as well. The commerce interruption, the lack of food supply that comes from the ocean, will affect them equally.
4 Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.
It was at the sounding of the third trumpet that the fresh waters became bitter Wormwood. This is something else. I see this as happening quite a bit later than the Wormwood episode. At this point in the tribulation many believers have been martyred. This is why John writes, 5 And I heard the angel of the waters saying: “You are righteous, O Lord, The One who is and who was and who is to be, Because You have judged these things.
6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, And You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due.”
7 And I heard another from the altar saying, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.”
Satan, in his extreme anger, is killing all the believers that he can find. Antichrist is completely unable to create his utopian world and he is blaming Christians. The Pharisees of Jesus’ earthly ministry days could not deny the miracles which Jesus was doing. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead … and instead becoming convinced that Jesus was the Christ, they plotted to kill Lazarus. A hardened and twisted human cannot think rationally.
The masses of unbelievers have suffered polluted oceans and fresh waters, they have been inflicted with sores. They have been maddened by the actions of the two witnesses. And now they have blood to drink. What next? Can it get any worse for them?
The sixth angel has sounded his trumpet and one third of the remaining population of unbelievers are killed.
The remaining ones are suffering with ugly sores and blood to drink.
Now the fifth bowl of God’s wrath is poured upon them.
8 ¶ Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.
This is global warming at its worst. I am not sure how any living tribulation believers can endure this. This is God’s wrath on unbelievers. Up to now, various plagues have been affecting only unbelievers. I am not sure how God will prevent the heat from scorching His own children. If there would be anything a person could do to minimize this, if they had been given advance warning, the tribulation believers would be the ones to have prepared for it.
The time of the tribulation, as far as the believers are concerned, is coming to a close. The sixth bowl of God’s anger is about to be poured out.
The antichrist has not had a reign like he hoped for. He has political unrest in his ‘kingdom’. The next bowl of God’s wrath is a problem for the antichrist.
12 ¶ Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14 For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
As much as we have been told, or led to believe, that the antichrist is a sole world leader, we have to adjust our thinking. Kings … plural, will be ‘spirit lead’ to a summit in Israel. They are coming to face off with antichrist's army and with the kings coming from the East.
But before that group assembles, the antichrist will merge his massive army with the armies of ten other kings, and he will remove a source of irritation that has affected and limited him greatly. He has not had the freedom to do as he pleased, at least not totally, because of the woman on his back.
He decides to do something about it … But first we read this.
15 “Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.”
Jesus raptures all of the remaining tribulation believers right here at this point.
The masses of unbelievers have been blaming the Christians, the two witnesses, the hundred forty-four thousand Christian/Jewish missionaries for all of the ecological troubles, for the pain of locust creatures, for the blistering sun, for the destruction of their oceans … and suddenly, they are gone. As best they can in the miserable environment that they are living in, they rejoice, first at the death of the two witnesses … and then at their being caught up to heaven along with all those Jesus takes at this ‘thief in the night’ rapture.
Next time we will look at the identity of the woman on the back of the beast, the antichrist and his system.
Following that, a close look at Daniel’s overview of the last seven years.
Then, possibly concluding with a session that could be a little bit technical in nature, showing why I believe the church and Israel must coexist in Daniel’s seventieth week.