“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Revelation 9 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. ² 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. ³ Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. ⁴ They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. ⁵ And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. ⁶ And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.

⁷ The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. ⁸ They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. ⁹ They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle. ¹⁰ They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months. ¹¹ They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon.

¹² The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things.

¹³ Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, ¹⁴ one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” ¹⁵ And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind. ¹⁶ The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. ¹⁷ And this is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. ¹⁸ A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths. ¹⁹ 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.

²⁰ The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; ²¹ and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.

Among the many things that are important for us to remember as we read and try to understand the meaning of the vision of Revelation, there is perhaps nothing more important than to remember that John, 2000 years ago, was seeing a vision of things which still have not come to pass.  Imagine if you will a person who lived in 1820, just two hundred years ago, trying to describe the technology and the everyday things of our current culture and society. We need to recognize that there were things that John was seeing that he had no ability to comprhend. When he says things like “the appearance was like,” he is trying to describe the future from the perspective of and in terms of the past. The text says:  Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.  Just as an example of the potential for what John saw to be answered by real modern day technology, here is an excerpt from an article about a new technology the military is working on:   As part of its roadmap for the future use of unmanned systems, the US Navy and Marine Corps is looking at deploying swarms of low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The Office of Naval Research has developed the Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) programme, which fires small UAVs from a tube-based launcher.

UAV swarms seek to move away from debates around the utility of manned aircraft and larger UAVs, into the questions around Josef Stalin’s reported statement that: “Quantity has a quality all of its own.” Swarms are mini or micro UAVs (or larger depending on the payload) acting in groups of at least three to five, as defined by Professor Chris Baber, chair of Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing at the University of Birmingham.

This is distinct from a group of UAVs, which are larger, up to the size of loitering munitions, and hold a pre-defined patrol pattern awaiting an order from a human operator. In contrast, swarm UAVs operate in a more autonomous and adaptable manner. As the term ‘swarm’ implies, many of the mechanics, doctrines and roles involved in the utilisation of these types of UAV derive from the natural world. Baber describes the operation of a swarm as “akin to that of a large flock of birds or insects working under three core principles: direction, distance and separation.” This refers to the direction they travel (following a leading UAV), the distance to be maintained between members of the swarm and ensuring the separation of each UAV's payload sensor to cover a different area and avoid duplication of coverage…

I’m not saying this is what John saw. I’m only saying that it is difficult to try to interpret everything he describes in terms of either what he knew or even what we know in the natural, physical realm.

Today’s text also says: A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths. 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.  The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.   One of the other things we should remember is that as it says in 2 Peter 3:8-9:   Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.   The point of even tribulation is to call and cause people to repent. At the beginning of Jesus ministry, in Matthew 4:17 He says:  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”   The great tribulation and even the birth pangs we looked at previously, that we are currently experiencing, is the precursor to the coming of the kingdom of heaven to earth, and so are for the purpose of calling and causing people to repent, because God’s will is that none should perish, but for all to come to repentance.

Thank You heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ and precious Holy Spirit that You call us to repent so that we would know You and the fullness of the kingdom of heaven. It is not if You kingdom will come and Your will would be done, but rather whether we will choose to allow Your kingdom to come and Your will to be done, here and now, on earth as it is in heaven and as it will be when You come again and establish the new heaven and earth.  Amen.