We often make comments like: “Can things get any worse than this?” Or “How long is God going to wait before He sends Jesus back again?” And we mean by that, “Hasn’t God gotten sick and tired of the world as it is?”
To answer those questions: #1 – Yes, things can get worse. #2 – I don’t know. #3 – Apparently, not yet. In 2 Peter 3:15, in the context of people arguing that Jesus isn’t coming back any time soon because He hasn’t come back and everything seems to be pretty normal, the apostle Peter says that we need to consider the “patience of our Lord as salvation.” In other words, God has not yet sent Jesus because God is waiting for more people to hear the gospel and more people to obey the gospel, and to repent of their sins.
I’m guessing that those same questions that we ask ourselves, the Christians in the first century were asking themselves. The lesson we are learning from chapter 9 in this study is that God is waiting and desiring for man to repent (2 Peter 3:9).
WHAT’S HAPPENED IN CHAPTER 8:
Trumpet #1 (8:7) – While this is a metaphor for God’s wrath on the Roman Empire, it is also a message about God’s grace. He’s not destroying everything. Not yet.
Trumpet #2 (8:8-9) – God is attacking the maritime trade of the nation of Rome.
Trumpet #3 (8:10-11) – We see both God’s wrath and His mercy – He has not yet destroyed all of mankind who persecutes His people.
Trumpet #4 (8:12) – It is simply a metaphor for God’s wrath and His mercy.
THE FIFTH TRUMPET – 9:1-12:
The locusts, are of course a metaphor, an emoji, taken from the eighth plague on Egypt (Exo. 10:1-20) from Exodus. But these locusts in John’s vision are quite different. These locusts have power.
In fact, these locusts / scorpions are not given power by God to kill anyone. They can only torment for five months. Just like the time of 10 days given in Revelation 2:10 is figurative for a short period of time, so here “five months” is a figurative period of a short time, but longer than the persecution Christians would experience.
The picture of these locusts are “like” horses prepared for battle. God is going to bring the Parthians against Rome and eventually they will defeat Rome. That’s how God will not just bring Rome to its knees but destroy Rome as a force against His people. They wore crowns of victory on their heads, crowns of gold. Their faces were like human faces; their hair was like the hair of women; their teeth were like the teeth of lions.
THE SIXTH TRUMPET #6 – 9:13-19:
How big of an army is God going to bring against the Roman Empire? According to the Brookings Institute, China has the world’s largest army at 2.8 million. The US has about half that number. Other countries with armies larger than 1 million are: Russia, India, and North Korea. How big is the army God is going to bring against the Roman Empire? Christians in the first century were probably thinking that very thing: What size army is God going to have to assemble in order to bring down the Roman Empire?
“The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.” Literally the number is “two myriads times myriads” with “myriads” being 10,000. So, it’s 20,000 times 10,000. So the number is designed to encourage Christians that God will take care of the problem! The Roman Empire’s army at this time was estimated to be about 150,000 with a reserve corps of about 150,000. So God’s “army” is going to be 700 times larger than the world’s most powerful military at that time.
The Lord has always tried to teach mankind that He can “save by many or by few” (1 Sam. 14:6).
God’s mercy limits the scope of His wrath because, in the words of Paul: “God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). But, the flip-side of this idea that God wants all men to be saved is that all men will not be saved because all men will not repent. God has punished / killed 1/3 of mankind. But that destruction – as we saw with Pharaoh and the Egyptians – punishment does not always motivate hard-headed and hard-hearted people to repent…
The verb “to repent” is used 34 times in the NT, 1/3 of those are in the book of Revelation. And the command to “repent” is given first and foremost to Christians who were not living according to the gospel and not teaching the gospel accurately: 2:5, 16, 21-22; 3:3, 19.
CONCLUSION:
- God will judge evil.
- God wants the wicked to repent.
Rich Reality from Revelation #5: God wants all men to repent.
Paul Holland
