The Scourge of War
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(This chapter has visions of modern weapons: helicopters and tanks. They are the result of perverted science and wars are divine punishments; as predicted people refuse to learn their lessons, see 6:4.)
The 5th angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth.  | |
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(The star is usually a symbol of the Jews and Christians. They have fallen from the sky meaning the element of air to the earth, the greedy materialistic world. Jews and Christians have abandoned divine spirituality and fallen for a greedy destructive culture, see 2:1, 8:10, 8:12, 12:4)
The star was given the key to the deep pit of hell. (This perverted culture can now unleash destructive forces. During the last 50 years of Anglo-American inspired wars Jews who run these countries behind the scenes have played a crucial part in shaping the policies which lead to these wars.)
(2) When he opened this pit, smoke rose from it like the smoke of an enormous fire. (Smoke is a mixture of elements: air symbolizing intelligence and fire symbolizing destruction. This mixture of elements symbolizes destructive thinking and science, see 6:7, 15:8.)
The sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit. (This destructive thinking has an overwhelming effect on our culture in general.)
 (3) And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth. (Further down in verse 7 - 10 these locusts are described looking like helicopters: Modern weapons as a result of perverted science.) They were given power like that of scorpions on the earth. (Power to harm people) (4) They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, (Their main damage is not to the environment but to people and their possessions.) but only those people who did not have the sign of God on their foreheads. | 
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(The Bible is not so much concerned with physical death but with spiritual death, "the second death", the death of the soul, see 21:8. Modern weapons cannot do this kind of damage.)
but only to torture them for five months. (Numbers have symbolic meaning: 5 is the number of human beings: 5 fingers, 5 toes; arms, legs and head also add up to 5. The damage done by modern weapons is only to the human body, physical damage.)
And their suffering was like the pain of a man stung by a scorpion. (Weapons hurt a lot.)
| (6) In those days people will want to die, but they won't be able to. (See 6:16.) |
| (7) The locusts looked like armed horses in battle. (In ancient prophetic visions about our time any kind of vehicle or craft is symbolized by "horses", see 9:17, Isaiah 2:7, Habakkuk 1:8.) There was something like crowns of gold above their heads (the spinning blades of the helicopter) and their faces looked like human faces. (Some helicopters have windows that look like eyes.) (8) They had hair like women's hair (the spinning blades look like women's hair, when it is blown about by a strong wind) and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. (This emphasizes their destructive potential.) (9) They had plates on their chests that looked like breastplates of iron, (For us this is too trivial to mention, not for a prophet living some 2000 years ago.) and the noise of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and coaches storming into battle. (the noise when helicopters fly) (10) They had tails and stings like scorpions, (The rear of helicopters is often slim and bent upward like the tail of a scorpion.) and in their tails was their power to torture people for five months. (Some helicopters carry guns, missiles or ammunition in their tails.) |
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(... and Satan in English)
(12) The first horror is over; two more horrors are yet to come. (13) The 6th angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the distant parts of the golden altar before God. (Wars and other disasters may look meaningless and random to us, but God is always in control.)
(14) The voice said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, (As we will see soon, the sixth trumpet is another lethal weapon of modern warfare: tanks.)
"Release the four angels who are tied up at the great river Euphrates." (Like 16:12 this verse seems to emphasize the importance of the Middle East as the theater of end-time wars. At the beginning of the year 2001 Saddam Hussein is building up an army at that river for a war together with Palestinians and other Muslims against Israel an her allies.)
(15) And the four angels were released. They had been kept ready for this very hour, day, month and year to kill a third of humanity. (One third is the reciprocal value of three, the opposite of the number of God. One third means the ungodly part, see 8:7, 9:18, 12:4. Verses 13, 14 and 15 are out of the context here and continue chapter 7, where these four angels represented freak weather disasters.)
(16) The number of the troops on horseback was two hundred million. I heard their number.| (17) I saw the horses and their riders in my vision. This is how they looked: their breastplates were red as fire, (fire symbolizing destruction) dark blue (Blue is the colour of air, dark blue is the spoiled variety, dark blue symbolizes perverted science.) and yellow as sulfur. (Yellow is the colour of earth meaning money. Greed as the incentive to start wars and trade in lethal weapons.) The heads of the horses looked like heads of lions, (The upper part of a tank, "turret", which can turn around often has a shape that resembles the head of a lion.) | 
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| and fire, smoke and sulfur (gunshots) came out of their mouths. (guns and cannons) (18) A third of humanity was killed by these three plagues: fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. (See above verse 15.) | 
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| (19) For the power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails. (These "tails" are the gun-pipes called cannons or barrels, see verse 7.) Like snakes their tails had heads, (The cannons are usually a bit thicker at the end. They have a "muzzle" to suppress the flash which makes them look like snakes with heads.) and they could do damage with them. | |
(When a war is over people never learn their lesson and soon afterwards all the countries are armed to their teeth again.)
they did not stop worshipping demons, (Any artificial god can be classified as a demon not only the 72 named ones from the Lesser Key of Solomon. Popular artificial gods these days are: Money, Superstars, the State, your own Race, the Ego, Female Beauty, Cars, Football, etc. These demons create wealth for their priests and do damage to other people.)
and idols made of gold, silver, (Jew-elry)
bronze, stone (Monuments in public places and sculptures of art in museums.)
and wood (Sculptures of saints in churches, e.g. Jesus on a wooden cross, see 21:8, 22:15, Isaiah 2:8, 42:17, 44:13, Habakkuk 2:18.)
- idols that cannot see or hear or walk. (21) And they did not repent of their murders, (The worst murders these days are committed by spreading poverty or earning millions and billions while people in other parts of the world are starving. These days there are between 50 and 60 million victims of poverty in the world each year. Putting this down to overpopulation is a lie. Responsible for this holocaust are bankers and other "fat cats".)
their black magic, (worshipping demons as above)
their sexual perversion