A fallen fellow and his key
Look at verse 1 and note the star that fell from heaven. There are a number of scriptures that refer to humans as stars. Sometimes they are angels and messengers. Sometimes they are human. The book of Jude includes some things like this. In Jude 8 he pointed out that the error of the ancients was not dead. Jews (v5), Angels (v6), and Gentiles (v7) all had some measure of godly truth-experience, but through forgetfulness or outright rejection went rogue.
They were people who had rejected God’s goodness, his lessons and his overtures and fallen from one place to another. The errors of indulgence, rebellion, and slander were expressed in them, and they were called wandering stars. They were ungodly people fallen from a place with good influences and landing in a place more natural to them, a place of bad influences.
So in Revelation 9:1 the same motif is seen. One who had known things of God had fallen from that heavenly domain to an earthly domain.
He was given a key. That is where I want the first point to drive home from. He did not take that key when he fell to the earth. His knowledge and understanding had not been a key to anything. He was cast out and at some point a key was given him. He did not take it, nor did he find it. God orchestrated his receipt of it.
The bottomless pit was locked
In verse two there is a place some versions of the Bible call the abyss. I don’t want to speculate on the location or implications of its being on the earth. Rather I think we do well to realize that this is a real place. It is a locked place. The bottomless pit could only be opened from the outside and that with a key. A key God had possession of. Think of the Far Side cartoons Gary Larson did such a great job with. One of his caricatures, though, is to suggest that demons control the people in the realm of hell. It seems from the scriptures that demons and people are subject to God. There is not a God-domain where God is sovereign and a Devil-domain where the Devil is. The Devil reigns on earth for a time, but Hades or the Abyss is not a place where he dominates. It is a place where he is banished.
God, when he was ready, gave a key to one who had rejected good things and that fellow proceeded to open the door to that pit. What happened then? Smoke came out and the environment went dim.
Smoky locusts
So these beasts that John saw he called locusts. He will describe them in great detail, but I don’t want to focus there. Rather I would have us see that the locusts, too, were given something. They were given power.
When they rose from that pit and emerged from the smoke they were merely scary somethings. They did not have intrinsic power to harm, but only looked like they did.
That power was to harm, but it also came with restrictions. They could not harm those whom God had sealed. Earth’s grasses and trees, the environment, too, were also off limits. They were also restricted to torment, they could not kill, and their term of torment was time limited: 5 months. Finally, they had their own king over them.
Ashley Cozart says
I’m signed! I’m sealed! Praise Jesus I’ll be delivered to heaven! ?