What is coming from the Lord? Joel’s message is one of urgency, yet it was written hundreds of years before Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth. With prophecy we have to deal with many often confusing images, metaphors, and symbols. We also have to discern when the passage talks of things soon coming to pass and those coming when Jesus returns to claim His kingdom on earth. We also have to contend with partial revelation within any one passage.
No one passage completely details the end times and the Day of the Lord. So we now go to Revelation to help us gain greater understanding of Joel and the Day of the Lord.
Revelation 9:1-12 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. 9:2 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. 9:3 Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Where did they come from? From the bottomless pit, where they have been confined since early in the history of the world.
Jude 1:6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,
So now, Satan is allowed to release them to torment the world of the ungodly.
9:4 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. 9:5 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.
These creatures from the bottomless pit will torment men for five months. Even though they are demonic in nature, God still uses them as His army.
9:6 And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.
9:7 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.
9:8 They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions.
9:9 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.
9:10 They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months.
This description is very similar to that in Joel 2. Language is totally inadequate to accurately describe such beasts. Notice both Joel and John use words such as ‘like the’ and then go onto to try and bridge the connection. Still words fail to give us the real picture and horror of these demonic beings.
9:11 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.
His name means destroyer. This is exactly the type of world Satan has desired since the beginning. Death, pain, destruction are his tools to gain total control.
9:12 The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things.
Things will get far worse before they get better.