The First Woe

Post 200

(Please read this post with your bible open)

As promised by Revelation 17:7, the beast is proving to be a significant mystery that is very hard to crack though I am making good progress. In an attempt to identify the several mysterious elements in the beast, I find it necessary to complete my study of the third Woe. Therefore this might seem out of order but it lays important ground before we can move on.
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Three Woes
are identified in Revelation 8:13; “And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound.”
This tells us that whatever came in the first four trumpets are only “pre-Three Woes” (post 196), They are comparable with early labor pains only later identified as but mere cramps. At the event of their sudden coming they are significant, but they can hardly even be called labor pains by comparison of what is yet to come! Woe is a word used in scripture of very terrible things to come.

Woe 3759 ouai; a primary exclamation of grief.
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The First Woe
begins in Revelation 9:1 by the blowing of the fifth trumpet.
The event of woe is identified as locust type creatures coming out of the bottomless pit (9:3) that torment all mankind with scorpion like stings. Only the saints of God who have his mark in their foreheads will be unmolested (9:3-5). Now we all know of the mark of the beast shown in Revelation 13:16-18, But here we are shown God’s preemptive action taking up that space with his own signature on his specially purposed faithful 144000 *1 (Revelation 7:4). Remember post 097 “Tattoo”?

At this point we can no longer view any life as independently undirected by the supernatural *2 as we have for so long. The corruption of Pantheism: god in everything; trees, rocks, animals, water, etc. is a perversion of the reality that the spirits of God do influence all things to His will. We began to see this in the Four Winds of post 175.
Here in Revelation our mind is seeing things spiritually and so we easily accept these as demons incongnito but neglect to see them as real. But in reality, as in all reality, these will just be bugs flying from a pit opened in the earth spewing black smoke as burning oil. It will be perfectly natural though unexplainable by science "until it is studied".
I imagine the scientists, so desperately looking for life in space, will immediately jump to the theory that these creatures came in on the burning meteor, but does it really matter to the events faced at the time?

So how does the pit get opened?
Revelation 9:1 tells us: “I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.”

Again, because we are mentally ready to read this as supernatural from the book of Revelation, we mentally dislodge this thought from reality. But in reality we see that like the winds, like the horses, like the spirits that aid or resist kings; This “star” might easily be the burning comet we saw fall only a few verses earlier in the third trumpet of Revelation 8:10 whose striking so perfectly targeted in the oil fields might result in the bursting of the earths oil reserves there causing an enormous fire of burning oil creating such inky smoke as to fulfill the events of the fourth angel of verse 12.
“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.”
This seems probable as the fulfillment of Matthew 24:22 to protect mankind from the increased intensity of the sun (Revelation 16:8 and hidden in Matthew 13:6) and not the more commonly thought shortening of the number of days of the event of the end which are clearly numbered exactly (Revelation 11:3, Daniel 12:11-12).

The 1/3 scientific problem:
Again I want to remind you this is only speculation. It is a possible explanation of the meaning of this passage, but it really makes sense. We see that the star strike is only significant enough to affect 1/3 the earth's atmosphere not the global “nuclear winter” effect Hollywood and science has us convinced would happen, but with global winds as we know them it would indeed be utterly impossible that such an event would not spread around the globe and affect the whole planet nearly equally regardless of the actual degree of affect.
But remember, only one chapter previous the angels stopped the winds from blowing; "...I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree" Revelation 7:1-3. By our study we know these four winds are the three circulation cells and the Jet stream. Now we understand the plausibility of such a strike only affecting 1/3 of the global skies with undissipated inky smoke. In this way we finally see the possibility scientifically that as the earth rotates with a "blob" of thick smoke over an isolated 1/3 the heavens obliterating the sunlight for 1/3 the day while the other 2/3 of the day remains all but unaffected once the cloud rotates out of obstruction each day. The same goes for 1/3 the stars and 1/3 the moonlight. Scientifically I believe this is the only answer and so my speculation becomes a very real hypothesis.

So is the falling star *3 a living being identified as a “him” and given a key? temporally I don’t think so. Physically the key simply refers to such a direct hit with the necessary power to burst the pit open. Out comes the smoke naturally as a great furnace, and with it a strange bug never before seen by science. This is no impossibility; science today is finding hundreds of new species of insects every year, and those are living in our own readily accessible realm of the earth's surface!
"But bugs living on oil in the depths of the earth?"
Why not? Science has only recently found many impossible creatures living in the impossible depths of the ocean, in the impossible heat of the earths undersea vents feeding on poison to all known living creatures!
We know by scripture that these locust like creatures come out of a cavern in the earth opened by a falling star. Perhaps they were feeding on oil and only driven out by the smoke of the fire created. This is not a stretch. I will eventually show the entire Middle East will become a perpetual burning. I believe this is how it begins.

But before we completely remove the supernatural element to the event, don’t misunderstand my point.
All of life's existence is not an either or; It is not nature OR God, it is nature OF God. If you really look at life with an honest eye, you have to conclude that EVERYTHING is a miracle! These creatures are no different even though they will sure have a demonic like nature to attack man with aggression like killer bees. These bugs are only called locusts because of their similar appearance and mode of travel. They sting with the affect of scorpions, they eat no vegetation, and are described with wonderful detail in v.7-10 showing a design with iron like plates suited for such an environment.
9:11 then tells us this cloud of creatures has a king over them, and that king is the angel of the bottomless pit. I don’t see this as any different than the chariot drivers of the horse winds that cover our globe (Zechariah 6). Unlike locusts who have no king, this king is a spirit that directs them to act as they do, but man will only see it as strange instinct from a strange bug and so it is.
It is this instinct that will allow them to travel independently covering greater distances with fewer numbers.

More spiritual than that:
In Revelation 8:10 this falling star is described as “burning as it were a lamp” . Why as a lamp? To describe it’s reddish color; a muted flame unlike a regular brilliant star.
What if by happen chance this star that falls to earth opening the bottomless pit, creating a smoke that blots out 1/3 the stars.... happens to be red?
Does that ring any bells?

“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon… and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth:…And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels (spirits of the locusts) were cast out with him” Revelation 12:3-4, 12:9.
Like the swine of Matthew 8:30-32, these locust bugs might now be living peacefully in their cavern and only become violent-natured when the demons cast out of heaven find a new home in them. Instead of running into the sea to drown, these swarm to loathing violence.
These pieces are fitting rather well turning a hypothesis into a genuine theory!
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What’s in a name?
This Revelation 8 star has a name: “And the name of the star is called Wormwood…” Revelation 8:12

Wormwood 894 apsinthos; of uncertain derivative; wormwood (as a type of bitterness, i.e. [figuratively] calamity).

The Revelation 9 angel of the bottomless pit also has a name in verse 11; two of them: “And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.”

Abaddon 3 Abaddon; of Hebrew origin [11]; a destroying angel.
Note: [ ] (brackets), in the rendering from the KJV denotes the inclusion of an additional word in the Greek.
11 Abraam; of Hebrew origin [85]; Abraham, the Hebrew patriarch
85 ademoneo; from a derivative of adeo, (to be sated to loathing); to be in distress (of mind).
Sate: 1. To satisfy or gratify to the full, as a desire. 2. To gratify to the point of weariness or loathing; satiate.
Apollyon 623 Apolluon; active participle; a destroyer (i.e. Satan).

WOW! The angel of the bottomless pit that rules over the conduct of the locust type creatures is a destroying angel of the Abrahamic claim but with a distress of destroying to gluttony; Satan.
If that does not nail Allah perfectly, what does?

Revelation 9:5 and 10 tells us that this plague of creatures will only last 5 months, but in those five months the stings will drive men to wish to die! Can you imagine horse flies that sting like scorpions actually driven to their work by demons?! WOE!

Revelation 9:12; “One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.”
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But if you think 5 months of stinging bugs is the first woe, given greater significance than all the global winds not blowing, or two great celestial object impacting the earth, or the resulting plume of smoke so great it literally blocks 1/3 the light of day.... then your missing the point of the woe!
What exactly makes this the first woe?

It is only because the attack of the locusts is the first direct attack of Satan himself on the people of the earth. Satan is now among us as he arises from the bottomless pit in the form of the 12th Imam; a twisted individual of the Abrahamic lineage bent on insatiable destruction! (Revelation 17:8)
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*1 What about the other believers? It seems that as with all the other wrath of Satan on mankind at this time, the believers are not immune to this blight either. Only the special ministering Jews whom God selects to do a special work will be immune. Why? So they will be free to continue the ministry of spreading the Gospel, but also as a sign from God that their message is true. (Revelation 7:3-4 + 9:4-6)

*2 We are all directed: "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Romans 6:16

*3 A Star:
In the recent post “pre-Three Woes” I failed to adequately investigate the difference between a burning mountain and a burning star. What is a star?
Star 792 aster; probably from the base of 4766; a star (as strown over the sky), literal or figurative.
Because the scriptures make a point of identifying both these burning objects differently, we can understand by stating “star” for the one, it means something more than a burning object.
Star: …any self-luminous celestial body, exclusive of comets, meteors, and nebulae;…

Isn’t that curious. Satan’s very original sin and primary issue is his self-luminous desire: "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness..." Ezekiel 28:17 (also: Genesis 3:5).
Since we now know that the dragon Satan falls to the earth as a burning object, the scriptural use of the word star could not possibly be more accurate.
So while the first celestial body that falls into the sea in Revelation 8:8 might be nothing more than a burning meteor, the second celestial body of Revelation 8:10 is Satan himself that falls to earth as a burning great *3b star.
Just because science has not yet discovered a star of such miniature proportions that it would not utterly destroy the earth upon impact, does not mean that it does not exist!
I am going to stand confidently on scripture to say it will be an actual miniature self-luminating star that falls to earth as an asteroid does, and go further to propose that because of its lantern red color and ability to penetrate the earth to such a degree, it will be a red dwarf star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_star).

*3b Great 3173 megas; big (literal or figurative), in a very wide application).
A very small star can still be none the less a giant object the size of a mountain. any object that size falling to earth by all means can rightly be called great, giant, or mega! but I rather think this has a secondary application as Satan was "great" indeed as THE covering cherub before he fell (Ezekiel 28:14-15).
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