Revelation 9 - Lake Erie Bible Church

Chapter 9
THE REVELATION TO JOHN
50. Further, the 7 bowl judgments are all called plagues (Rev.15:1) tying them in with
this 6 th trumpet judgment indicating the final period of 3 ½ years to be viewed as the
Day of the Lord.
51. It is important to realize that the subjunctive mood of “they might kill” in vs.15 only
denotes their potential and is not stating that the killing is occurring right now in
John’s vision.
52. This suggests at the least that the actual killing as a plague upon the world will
coincide with the beginning of the Day of the Lord and in correlation with the 7 bowl
judgments.
53. Some have recognized that while the imagery here obviously refers to warfare, using
fire, smoke, and brimstone as symbols of that fact also denotes this is part of God’s
judgment. Gen.19:24; Psa.11:6; Isa.34:9 (this passage strongly suggests the aftermath
of nuclear warfare on prophetic Edom as brimstone)
54. Vs.19 now indicates that the control and power of these vehicles are found in two
primary locations, “For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their
tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do
harm”.
55. Again, the real power of a horse is in its body and it generally does not harm
someone by biting him or by swishing its tail.
56. While many interpreters recognized that the power to kill people lies in the mouths
(fronts) of these horses, it is their tails (rear) described as being like serpents that
begs explanation.
57. John specifically states that the similarity to serpents is found in the fact that they
have heads that have the power to cause some form of injury.
58. John uses the same word that he used in verse 4 of this chapter for injury or wounds
that are not in and of themselves lethal in nature.
59. One suggestion is that their tails would be some sort of swivel mounted machine gun
at the rear of the vehicle.
60. However, the emphasis on heads (all snakes have a head, why the redundancy?)
pictures the ability for quick thinking and peripheral/lateral-vertical vision coupled
with the amazing speed of a snake to strike indicating the ability to seek one’s prey
with complete accuracy.
61. I might suggest that the rear of the vehicle contains the computer brains interfaced to
the frontal weaponry with built in radar, infra red, satellite or another high tech
detection system for blanket accuracy and speed of attack.
62. While it doesn’t do the actual killing, its harm is that it can accurately target the
enemy leading to that killing, or at the least revealing enemy location and/or capture.
63. The total picture denotes a new high tech modern assault ground vehicle capable of
targeting its enemy with laser or other high tech methods able to destroy any human
object within its designed periphery with extreme prejudice.
64. While we would not be dogmatic about such a clearly symbolic portion of Revelation,
the total image is designed to bring forth a frightful picture of carnage, which it no
doubt did among the early readers of this book.
Lake Erie Bible Church
P-T Ken Reed
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