The Demonic Locusts

RV140-01

The apostle John is being shown, by means of a vision, the future events which are destined to take place during the future seven-year tribulation era on this earth after the church has been removed with the rapture event. I would remind you again that the things that we read and the things that we mention are actually things that are going to happen here in this world to people that you know. Particularly, in this section that we have now been through with the trumpet judgments, you may be tempted to feel that this is some kind of a special movie like Revelation 3, or Halloween 2, or Friday the 13th 1. Those are very scary, but this is for real. Yet, it is so awesome that most of the Christian world says, "This book is nonsense. Whoever wrote it, and whatever he meant, we have no idea what we're supposed to do with it and how we're supposed to deal with it." But it just talks about things that are strictly a horror movie scenario.

So, I remind you that the author is God the Holy Spirit, and it is a horror scenario. It is the final dealing of a holy God, who comes to the point where He will no longer tolerate the evil and the sin of mankind. The apostle John is being given a preview of the things that are going to happen in that period of history.

Today, everybody is interested where history is going. They want to know who's going to be the next president; what the economy is going to do; and, how things are going to be a few months down the road. But increasingly, I'm aware of the fact (I think, in truth) that what we are reading in a book like the Revelation is far more important than any of those things. This is really where it's at. Therefore, we have to shift our mental gears, and while other people are talking about trivialities, we have something to talk about that is going to make a difference relative to our eternity, and to this whole world in which we live.

These events that John is seeing are being portrayed to him under the symbols of seals, and trumpets, and bowls. The events revealed under each of these symbols, I remind you, adds new information to what has previously come. Seals one through 7 have passed, and each one added new information. Out of this seventh seal came a series of seven trumpets. The seven trumpets keep adding more information. When we get to the seventh trumpet, we will find that out of that seventh trumpet pops seven bowls. They go forward – adding more information.

So, every step we are taking has added more information. The seals took us to a little bit past the midpoint of the tribulation period. The things that we are finding under the trumpets now are a lot more serious. They are proving to be a lot more devastating to human society (that will be on earth at that time), and when you get to the bowls, everything will be shredded. But that is going to happen right down near the end, where people just won't be able to take anymore. And that is when Jesus Christ appears on the horizon of the scene.

The First Four Trumpets

The Last Three Trumpets

The Fifth Trumpet

Tartarus

The Nephilim

So, that brings us to Revelation 9:4. The objective here is stated in verses 4-6 of the fifth trumpet judgment. First of all, in verse 4 comes the order to attack: "And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth." The word "command" here is actually the word "to tell." It connotes here the battle orders which are delivered to the locus demons. We are not told who delivers the orders, but, no doubt, they are, of course, delivered under God's authority. The orders are delivered to these particular demons, and they are told that they are not to do something. Specifically, in their attacks upon the tribulation humanity, they are not to hurt certain things. The Greek word is "adikeo." This Greek word means that they are not to do injury to certain things.

They are not to Injure certain Things

This practice of God using locusts to inflict judgments upon mankind is also described in Joel 1:4-7. It is contrary to the nature of locusts to attack anything other than green vegetation things. These demon locusts are prevented from doing that. One-third of the earth's vegetation has already been destroyed previously under the first trumpet judgment. So, apparently for that reason, God says, "That's enough for the moment. We're not going to let any more green things be destroyed."

A Seal

I don't know exactly what the nature of the seal will be. I expect that it will be a visible mark of some kind, but it will classify people – those who have the seal, and those who do not have the seal. God regularly marks human beings out in various categories by seals that He places upon them. We as Christians are marked by the seal that God has placed upon us, which is God the Holy Spirit. In 2 Timothy 2:19, if we have this seal of God the Holy Spirit, it indicates that we are those who belong to the family of God. This particular seal, he says, "Will be obviously where it can be seen, because it's going to be in the people's forehead. And the demon locusts are directed that they must not attack those who have this particular seal. The seal that these people will have is the one described in Revelation 7:2-3, where it is referred to as the mark of the beast.

So, those who are open to attack carry the mark of the antichrist. Born-again believers are safe from this painful attack.

I hope when I said that, that you did not say, "Oh, that's good. I'm glad to hear that," and you breathed a sigh of relief. You're not going to be here to face that kind of attack. We are talking about people who have been left over after the church has been removed, but who believed in Christ during the tribulation, and who were not martyred. These people carry upon them a mark in their forehead that clearly identifies them as belonging to God, as those who have pledged allegiance to the antichrist will also have a mark on their forehead and in their right hand, indicating that they belong to the opponent of God.

So, born-again believers are going to be safe from these locust-like demon attacks. The Jews were, in a similar way, preserved in Egypt from the locust plague. The locusts hit everything that belonged to the Egyptians, but they didn't touch anything that belonged to the Jews.

This is rather odd that Satan cannot touch the people of God – the very people that he would like to hit. But that is a principle that is comforting for us to remember today. The Book of Job, and the experience of Job, has demonstrated to us that Satan cannot hit any of us without divine permission. The Bible also tells us that Satan does go about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (seeking what Christian he may bring down in some way). But he cannot do that unless God permits him to do so.

So, the unbelievers who are attacked are in fact demon worshipers. They worship false gods, and so they worship demons in effect. These are people who will be part of what today is called the New Age movement, who claims deity for themselves. It is going to be ironic that, while they claim deity for themselves, and while they claim to have moved humanity to a high state of civilization and intelligence, they won't be able to stop these locust-like demons from their attacks.

So, the true Creator God actually humiliates the New Agers. The demons will be attacking the very people who are in charge of that age. As I said, these locust demons probably are going to be happy to engage in this, because they're hopping mad for these centuries that they have been tied up in Tartarus. Ephesians 4:30 tells us that we Christians have God the Holy Spirit as our mark of identification.

In verse 4-6, we have the execution of the attack order. Verse 4 gave the attack order: "Do not hit anything that is green. Hit only human beings, but hit only those human beings that do not have God's mark upon them. Verse 5 says, "And to them it was given that they should not kill, but that they should be tormented five months." This is an interesting development, for it tells us that these demons receive special authority from God, but they are not given authority that enables them to kill. The word "kill" here means just to go around taking people's lives. These demons are not given authority to take people's lives. They're going to bring an awful amount of enormous suffering to people, and they will absolutely not be able to take a life in the process.

So, the demons from the abyss will be able to do great injury, but they will not be able to take anybody's life: "They should not kill, but they should torment people for five months." The word "torment" looks like this in the Greek Bible: "basanizo," and this word means "to inflict pain." I don't know how they're going to do this. I don't know what they are going to do to the physical bodies of people. But it isn't just that you're going to say, "Oh, I've got a headache." It's not just that you're going to say, "I don't feel too well." It is going to be excruciating pain, which is what's behind this word. These people are really going to be tormented, and that's what the word means. It will be done to them by these locust demons.

Five Months of Torture

Like the Torment of a Scorpion

The helplessness before the demon attack should alert thinking people to how false their leader the antichrist is. He will undoubtedly, by this time, have claimed to be a god. Thinking people, no doubt, will say, "If you are a God, why can't you help us? Why can't you do something about this? We have all the powers of medical science and all the powers of government, and you cannot stop these creatures that are imposing this suffering upon us."

People will Seek Suicide

This tells me that the pharmaceutical companies are going to be at a loss to help people. What we're being told here is that all of man's knowledge of drugs, which he now so abuses against the living God, is going to be something that will be of no value to him. No matter what drugs you may seek to use to alleviate the pain, it won't work. It is going to really be a preview of hell itself. Again, I remind you, that we are not talking about science fiction. We're talking about something happening on this earth to people you know, within societies that you're acquainted with.

So, the pain will be excruciating. Some people will want to die. Some will no doubt go insane from the agony of the pain. People will lack spiritual understanding to realize, however, that to seek suicide is not a good solution, because if they're under this attack, and they look over here and they see that these people who have a mark of God upon them are not under attack, they should put two and two together and say, "God is protecting them. He is judging me. If I take my life, and die in this condition, and go out there to face Him, I'm going to have a lot more pain and a lot more suffering than I am experiencing now." But I suppose, by that time, they'll be driven so out of their minds that they will not follow that kind of judgment and that kind of logic. The pain of the lake of fire will be infinitely worse.

When we read about the lake of fire in the Bible, as in Revelation 20:10 and Matthew 25:41, we are told that it is a place of burning; that it is a place of fire; and, that it is a place of brimstone. Brimstone is a sulfuric burning element such that, when it hits you, you can't even brush it off. It just burns right on and burns right through. So, these people, because of their lack of spiritual understanding, are going to be completely at a loss to deal with this terrible suffering.

So, we're told that they seek death, and the result is they're not going to find it. The word "not" here is stressed by God the Holy Spirit. As you know, "ou" is the strong word for "not" in the Greek Bible. "Me" is the weaker word for "no" in the Bible. "Me" leaves the door open that maybe something can be arranged. "Ou" says, "No way. It's absolutely close." When the Greek language wanted to make it very strong, they put these two together, and that's what God the Holy Spirit did. When you say, "Ou me," that means, "Absolutely no way."

So, here these people in are excruciating pain with absolutely no way out. What do they want? They want to find (they're looking for) death. For five months, they keep looking for death, and they try to kill themselves in a variety of ways. Yet all of their efforts are completely fruitless. They desire to die. The Greek word for "desire" is this word "epithumeo." This is the word that we often translated as "lust." These people lust to die, which is a word to show how really desperately they would like this to happen.

Death Takes a Holiday

So, sin results in these people losing control of their own will. They can't even kill themselves when they try. They put a gun to their head, and they miss it. They say, "I'll try again." They put a gun to their head, and it goes right past their nose. They take some poison, and it doesn't work. I mean, these people are actually trying things. They jump off of a tall building, and they float down. They can't kill themselves. It's frustrating. It is a bitter fruit of the rejection of Jesus Christ and of the Bible as the Word of God in the New Age movement.

Furthermore, all the beliefs in Eastern mysticism are now going to come to a head. People are going to find out that they really do not have deity within themselves. They're going to remember all those things that Shirley MacLaine is telling them. They're going to remember all the things they learned at her new center that she is building in California to teach people the mysteries of their inner power, and of their inner self, and of their inner godhood, and they're going to discover that it was all a big lie. The wrath of a holy God against sin cannot be escaped, no matter how sophisticated you may be. It would be the irony of all ironies if Shirley was right out there with them, experiencing these very things that we're reading about.

Well, what do you see when this happens? I was going to tie this in with Halloween – what Halloween means; why we dress up; the significance of it; why Halloween is an evil satanic holiday; and, why it should not be participated in. And the description you have in verses 7-12 make you think that you are watching somebody going out trick-or-treating, for it describes these locusts.

The Locusts

They Look Like Horses with Crowns

So, these are demons who act under a sense of great accomplishment and victory because they have all these people under their control, and these people can't do anything about stopping what they're doing to them. On top of their little heads, they have some crowns. These crowns are made of gold.

Faces of Human Beings

Stings

Now, what does all this mean? What does this appearance symbolize? I haven't the foggiest notion because John didn't explain it. Sometimes he uses these descriptions and he says, "Now here's what it means." But even if you went through the Bible, it's rather hard. You could kind of speculate on this, and come up with some kind of a story about it, but it would be speculation. The main thing that I see we get out of this is that people are going to see these things buzzing around, and they're going to see that these things come in and hit them and hurt them. They can see these things coming at them.

Can you imagine a bug that looks like this, and it comes in, and opens his teeth, and there are fangs like a lion, and he bites into you, and then flies away? And when he's coming toward you, he has the howling sound like horses going into battle – their hooves on the ground? I mean, just hearing these things is going to be frightening. And seeing these things is going to be terrible. And then, when you get hit, they cause excruciating pain, and the fact that you cannot slap these things; you cannot kill them; and, you cannot destroy them for five long months. You can imagine what the technology is immediately going to invent. Somebody is going to come up with locust-protective clothing. Somebody is going to come up with locust-protective ointments, and disinfectants, and all kinds of things to try to ward these things off. It's going to be terrible. People are going to hurt and hurt and hurt, and these demons are going to have a field day. For five months, they inflict pain.

At the end of that time, this trumpet judgment is brought to an end, and these locust-like demons probably are put back into the pit of the abyss.

A King (Satan)

Furthermore, when the when we say that they have a king over, then this immediately tells us that these locusts creatures are really rational creatures. They're not really bugs. Proverbs 30:27 tells us that locusts do not have kings over them. So, these have kings because they are a special kind of creatures. They are really rational creatures. They are angels.

Their king has two names. They give, first of all, the Hebrew name. It's transliterated into Greek and it looks like this: "Abaddon." He has a Greek name. It's the name "Apollyon." Both these words, in Hebrew and in Greek, mean "destroyer." So, while Satan poses before people as a person of great enlightenment, and one who is out to do a lot of human good for people, he is in fact a destructive tyrant. Those who follow Satan's human viewpoint line of thinking always become tyrants themselves. That's all he knows how to be. What he does is bring about destruction. When people follow the guidance and the ideas of Satan, they destroy themselves physically (in their souls) and spiritually. Nothing good ever comes of following Satan's way of thinking. That was demonstrated in the Garden of Eden, and it has been proved in the human race again and again.

Verse 12 then sums it up with the words: "One woe is passed, and behold, there come to woes more hereafter." One woe (this expression of grief) is over. This is an expression, as you know, which is used in the Bible to express calamity. God's response to the evil wickedness which is running rampant in the tribulation is going to be two more woes. The second woe comes on then as the sixth trumpet judgment.

Satan

The Demon Angels

The Lake of Fire

Now, why did God just pitch all these dudes right into the lake of fire, which He did create, and which already exists? We have a suggestion in the fact that people often accuse God of being unfair. When you talk about the fact that God is a God of severity, who will send people into the lake of fire, He is accused of being unfair: "That's not fair." That is especially true once they learn the doctrine of election. That's when they really go bananas about what is fair. I can just hear that these people are repeating a statement that Satan made. When Satan found that God said, "I'm going to send you forever into this lake, and the angels who have followed you," Satan's response was, "That's not fair. If you're supposed to be a god of justice, how can you do this to us? That's cruel and unusual punishment. The Constitution forbids that."

Well, God decided to delay the execution, and to demonstrate something to all the angels who were listening in on all this, and to more created beings that he was going to bring in to existence in the form of human beings. He was going to show that he is a just God, and that He's always fair. How was He going to do that? He created man – a creature who is a little lower than the angels. He is a creature who, if he walks into a wall, is going to get a bloody nose. The angel could walk through the wall and go through it. Man is limited by time and space. But He gave this man also the opportunity to make choices, and to bear the consequences of his choices. He put them put him into that perfect garden. The result was that all the created beings were going to wait to see what was going to happen. Satan stood around waiting. The demons stood around waiting. Finally, Satan set in motion his own plan; brought Adam and Eve down; and, now they had fallen into sin as well.

Now, what was God going to do, if He's so high and mighty, and fair, and just? What God did was immediately condemned them. He immediately brought punishment upon them. Then He demonstrated a marvelous facet of his fairness. He then said, "Through you, the woman, I will one day bring a Savior who will pay your penalty of death, and will reverse what you have done through Satan's guidance, and enable you to spend eternity in Me."

Satan said, "Aha! Here's this just God. He's going to act like a good old granddaddy and forget all this sin that these people were guilty of." No. God's justice was now going to be demonstrated in crystal-clear clarity, and that was executed with Christ upon the cross, so now the justice of God has imposed what it demands of a penalty for sin, so that now God can actually take sinners (who deserve to be in the lake of fire with Satan) to heaven. It was a brilliant move on the part of God to demonstrate His justice. Satan led mankind into evil. God has reversed that whole project, and that whole mistake. Hebrews 1:13, based on Psalm 110:1, tells us that eventually, God is going to make His Son, Jesus Christ, the one whose foot will stand upon Satan and all the demonic ghosts. It's called Operation Footstool in the Bible.

The Angelic Warfare

I've been seeing an ad on television with a man. He has Satan on one shoulder as a bad angel, and a good angel on the other shoulder telling him to do the opposite. He's being torn, and being encouraged to do things one way and the other way. Everybody sits there, and it's kind of funny, and it's cute, and it's an ad, but the truth of the matter is that that's exactly what happens. One of those dudes is sitting on your shoulder, and the other one is sitting on the other side, and they are attempting to lead you to God and against God. That's exactly what is happening.

These demons are very real. They have soul qualities, meaning that they can think; they can make decisions; and, they have emotions. They are a creation of God through Jesus Christ. They also have a body, but it's a body of light. It is a substance which is real. It is capable of speaking, but it is not limited to time and space. They can fly any place immediately. They can go through anything. They are not restricted as people are.

Angels, therefore, are above man in the order of creation. Animals come below man in that order of creation. The time is going to come when we as believers are going to be elevated above the angels. The angels are invisible to the human eye. God had to do that, because if they weren't, we would be inclined to worship them. That's what John does on a couple of occasions. They may, however, make themselves visible in a variety of shapes and forms.

Since Satan and the demons are an unseen enemy, they are very hard to deal with, and they are very hard for people to take seriously. Angels have various ranks of authority. It is like a military operation, and you have a rank system among the angels. They have certain powers commensurate with their rank. When the demon angels opposed God, they didn't lose their power. They didn't lose the wisdom. They didn't lose all the superior qualities they have over human beings. They just use that against us now.

Evidences of Demons

1. Speaking in Tongues

   One of them is the practice of speaking in tongues, which is not the biblical practice of speaking in foreign languages, but is the practice of letting go, and another force takes hold, and you speak in gibberish syllables. This is one of the primary counterattacks of Satan in the angelic warfare in his attempt to avoid the fulfillment of Project Footstool. The demons are trying to frustrate God's plan against them, and they're doing it by promoting a variety of religious expressions. Tongues is one of them.

   That seems rather shocking because, immediately to your mind, come all the fine churches; all the big time preachers; and, all the people that carry prestige and influence in our society, who are standing out there speaking in gibberish tongue. I'm sorry, but they are agents of Satan. They are operating under a demonic influence. They are the people of Matthew 7 who are going to say, "Lord, Lord, we cast out demons, and we spoke in tongues. We had miracles, and we made prophetic utterances."

   These participants, under Satan's influence in the tongue movement, think that they have a rich spiritual experience with God, but when somebody who is speaking in tongues, know for a certainty that that person is out of the inner circle of temporal fellowship, and therefore is a person to whom you must give no allegiance, and to whom you must not give your assistance, or to pay any attention to what they have to say. The tongues today is strictly an act of Satan to undermine the work of God among believers. People who are sincerely drawn into this are always doctrinally uninformed, and they are spiritually immature.

   After August of 70 A.D., the moment in time when the city of Jerusalem fell to the Roman legions, the fifth stage of the cycle of discipline that God had ordained for the Jewish people came into effect. That fifth stage was being scattered throughout all the nations of the world. At that point in time, the tongue-speaking came to an end. The Jews now no longer needed this supernatural evidence that God was delivering information to them.

2. Miracle Healings

   A second factor is miracle healings. Those of you who are prone to want to send in a little offering to get your prayer cloth, or your little vial of anointing oil, so that you may take care of your aches and pains, should give it another thought. This is another counterattack by Satan against the people of God. It is a sophisticated, present-day expression of what the locust-like demons are going to do in attacking the people of the tribulation. This is another visible manifestation of the angelic warfare which includes demons counterfeiting the real thing. Behind the healers – behind the people who create healings, the people who will actually get you healed is not the power of God, but the power of Satan and of demons. If God is going to heal you, He will not use a human agent. He may use a Christian who will pray for you. We all have the power of prayer for the healing of other people. But no one's hand will deliver healing to you. If somebody comes along and says, "Let me touch you, and I will give you healing," right away you know that here is an agent of the demonic world springing a counterfeit upon you. Steer clear of it. The New Testament gifts of healing have served their purpose to authenticate the New Age of grace and to confirm information which was given until the New Testament Scriptures were completed.

3. Occultism

   The third area of satanic activity, which is increasingly popular, is occultism. This is a widespread interest in the practice of contacting the spirit world. This is expressed in séances to establish contact with the dead. It is done with Ouija boards. Yes, Ouija boards do work, and Ouija boards give you an association with a spirit force. It is done with astrology; with tarot cards; with horoscope readings; with black magic; with white magic; with fortunetelling; with levitation; with telekinesis (making things float in the air); with haunted houses; with devils' masks; and, with Halloween. All these things are associated with the spirit world. The occult world and occult practices are now openly done under respectability. It is popularized through various information media. Prominent public entertainers are used to have you by a series of books on the occult world, and they make it seem like it's a very wonderful, informative thing for you to have. There are vast segments of mankind which today, under the demonic influence, are going to come to a climax in a tribulation era.

   Drug Use

   Also, don't forget that along with the occult world, there's the practice of drug use. Drugs and occult contact have historically gone together.

4. Eastern Mysticism

   The final one, that is an expression of the demonic activity that you should be aware of, and be very careful of, is Eastern mysticism. At the heart of this is the basic concept that man is God. At the heart of this is the basic concept that if you don't make it this time with God, you'll come back in another form in another life, and you'll have another shot at it. This is tough to resist when you look at some of the prominent people who are saying this. When you look at someone like George Patton, a tremendous soldier. Of all the American generals, he is the one that the Germans feared most. George Patton was a daily Bible reader. He was a person who gave respect to God. Then, for him to believe that he had been back in other lives, and that this was his current life as a soldier, and that he had died in battles previously, is to cause you to stop and think, "How close can you look like the real thing with the concepts of Eastern mysticism, and not realize that you're listening to satanic ideas?

   The whole concept that there is a second chance is Satan's counterfeit, as is the whole concept that we have potential deity within us. When you look at really moral people like Mormons, who are telling you that you can be a god someday, and have your own world, your own earth, and your own wives to populate it, and you look at their wealth, and you look at their prosperity, who's making things go so well for them except Satan? He is making people that are very moral – the way you'd like your kids to act. Yet, these are people who were under satanic influence, because they are in Eastern mysticism as well.

   The most devastating feature of Eastern mysticism is the concept that anything you want to do, if you just think positively, you can do it. The charismatics have become very fond of visualizations. They have become very fond of imagining what they'd like to be; what they'd like to do; and, what they'd like to possess, and that if they can just think it, it will come into being. Well, what is Satan telling you there? Satan is telling you that your thoughts are like God's thoughts. They're omnipotent. Your thoughts are as creative as God. Your words are as creative as God's Words. I have listened to the television charismatic evangelists, and that's the very thing that they're telling people. God had power in creation through words. If you use God's Words, you can have the same power of creating what you need. Do you need some money? Think yourself wealthy. Speak it into existence. You have the power of words to bring it about. Does it work? You bet it works. But who is making it work? Like the healings that the fake healers produce, and like anything else that Satan is willing to give people, he is the one who is making it happen.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1984

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