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Revelation 9:2
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2 And [kai] he opened [anoigo] the bottomless [abussos] pit; [phrear] and [kai] there arose [anabaino] a smoke [kapnos] out of [ek] the pit, [phrear] as [hos] the smoke [kapnos] of a great [megas] furnace; [kaminos] and [kai] the sun [helios] and [kai] the air [aer] were darkened [skotizo] by reason of [ek] the smoke [kapnos] of the pit. [phrear] KJV-Interlinear
2 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. NASB
There is a place called the underworld. Its name is generally referred to as Sheol or Hades. It is not a part of our tangible or temporal world, but is a place of the spiritual world, usually called the world of the dead, or the land of the dead.
Within Hades (the underworld), there are four compartments or four realms. The first is Paradise. That is the place where all Old Testament believers went when they died. It is also referred to as a prison or a place of entrapment, in that believers had to wait for the Cross, and Christ to defeat death, before they would actually be free from death. Immediately after the Cross, Jesus Christ led ‘captives,’ those Old Testament believers in a grand procession, out of Paradise and into heaven. That is where they are now and that leaves paradise completely empty and unused.
The Old Testament believers are in heaven awaiting their resurrection, which will occur, at the end of their dispensation, which is at the end of the Tribulation, immediately after the Second Advent.
Anyone who wants to go to Paradise, is saying that they want to go to a place that has long since been abandoned. And, it also demonstrates their lack of knowledge of truth and the facts of life. There are several religions that make a big deal about going to Paradise, but then those religions are false beliefs and confused anyway.
Heaven and Paradise are not the same place. The reference to the Paradise of God in heaven, is not the same as Paradise in the underworld. Just to add a little more confusion to the pot.
The second compartment in Hades, is Torments. That is the place where all unbelievers throughout all of human history, go, when they die. All unbelievers wait there in Torments, until their resurrection at the end of history, at the end of the Millennium, and will then face the Great White Throne, before Christ. And there they will receive their indictment for unbelief, and attempt at salvation based on their own works. Their works will not match that of Christ, and therefore they will be condemned to the Lake of Fire. Note, that sin is not a part of their indictment, because Christ paid the price of sin already. There is no double jeopardy, no second trial for the same crime.
The third compartment in Hades, is Tartarus. It was there, that the disobedient angels and their hybrid offspring, will reside, who mated with human women in Genesis six, in their effort to destroy the purity of the human race. Tartarus is described as a place of vast pits of darkness. Those occupants will remain there until their day of judgment, also at the end of the Millennium. The demons of our passage bear no resemblance to those in Tartarus, who by their makeup, would be a widely diverse group in appearance. It was Peter (2 Pet. 2:4) who stated that they would be there pending their final judgment. He made no mention of an early release for any reason.
And that leaves us with the fourth and last compartment in Hades, called the Abyss. This is where the worst of the worst of fallen angels, are incarcerated. These are the incorrigible, the unrepentant, the most evil of the demon groups. And they have been imprisoned in the Abyss since before humanity was created. And there they have been waiting for this future moment in history.
There are two groups in the Abyss. The first group is going to be described in our passage covering the fifth trumpet, and the second group will be described beginning in verse 14 with the sixth trumpet.
Up until now, all of the events have been temporal and of things common to mankind, such as human failure, volcano’s, hail and so forth.
But now, the judgments will enter in to the realm of the spiritual. Something that humanity has not ever seen since the ancient days of the Old Testament, during and before Noah’s time.
Today, we can talk of angels and demons and things of that nature, but we simply cannot see them. We accept their existence through faith.
Throughout history there have been people who have prided themselves as being ‘bad,’ even to the point of boasting about it.
But no one in history really knows what bad, really bad evil, is. And unfortunately people in the Tribulation, through their stubborn arrogance of rejection of Christ, are going to learn just what ‘bad’ means.
This first group is going to be a torment only group, and people will wish they were dead. And then the second group, will actually fulfill that wish, and a third of all of humanity will die.
The angel, descended out from heaven, sent by God, carrying the key to the bottomless pit, and unlocked that pit and dark smoke, deathly smoke will come billowing out such that it will darken the skies. This darkness will last for five months. Seeing will become difficult, and choking from the dirty air will become common place.
There is an actual smoke and a symbolic smoke. Light is generally used to describe truth, or reality with God. And darkness is the absence of truth, the absence of God, as it were. And out of the pit will come those who lack all connection with truth. They are evil to the core.
Notice that the smoke is not the evil but describes what is coming. The people of the planet, have rejected God, and by rejecting God and truth, they by default embrace darkness. So that is exactly what they are going to get.
And the very thing that they want, will become the source of their most miserable misery. No light with which to see, and no air with which to breathe. They will choke and go blind, on evil, because that is all that it is good for.
That is a true principle then and it is a true principle now. If you do not pursue the learning of Bible doctrine, then you are in effect doing exactly what those folks will be doing. And remember one important thing, the Tribulation will arise out of an apostate Church Age. That is our age.
Just as negative volition toward God and doctrine will bring increased judgments in that future day, so too, negative volition toward God and doctrine, will bring reduced blessings in our day.
The great revival of humanity will occur at the end of and throughout the Tribulation. And it will come at a great price.
Our dispensation will not end in a great revival, but the contrary. We will slide into the worst apostate phase in all of our era. And why is that? Because people today, do not take God, Christ, and especially doctrine, seriously. And because we lack a serious attitude toward our spiritual life now, then life in that future day, will become really serious.
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