9 And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. 2 He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. 3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.5 They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.
7 In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, 8 their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth; 9 they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. 10 They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. 11 They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.
12 The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.
The origin and development of the demonic element in sin is something we shall do well to spend some time considering, particularly in relation to what this chapter suggests about the 'demonisation' of civilisation. The 'history' of sin begins in the Garden of Eden story in Genesis 3, when the serpent beguiled Eve. There are two aspects to human sin. There is that aspect which has to do, one might say, with the senses, and which expresses itself in waywardness and weakness and in the frailty of human existence. 'All we like sheep have gone astray' said Isaiah, expressing it perfectly. The other aspect is spirit, and is expressed in the revolt of the spirit of man against the living God. Now these two are quite distinct, and are present in greater or lesser degree in every sin we commit. Some sins are more predomi- nantly sensual sins, having their root in the weakness and frailty of human existence, much more sensual than rebellious. Other sins, however, have a much greater element of rebellion and revolt and spirit than of the flesh. Sins of appetite, gluttony, licentiousness and such like, illustrate the former, while the sins of the spirit, pride, arrogance, ambition, illustrates the lat- ter. Both these elements appear, though in different ways, in the Genesis story. The immediate appeal to Eve was to the senses -'When she saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes...' - and this was Satan's beguilement, concealing the real force of his attack which was in his words 'ye shall be as Gods...' It was the revolt against God that was his real aim. And the full force of this is seen only in the later story of the tower of Babel, with its arrogant pretensions, clamouring up to the throne of God. It is here that we see the truly demonic element appearing - devilish ambition rearing its unholy and blasphemous head against the living God. The sensual recedes, and the spiritual takes the ascendant, takes over, so to speak, and becomes more and more devilish. This is the ultimate of sin. When Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:13 that 'evil men... shall wax worse and worse' he was simply recognising the inevitable outcome of the 'history' of sin, for in the end, the 'weaker' element in it is al- most completely in abeyance, and the 'spiritual' is in full control, and the 'demonisation' of sin becomes a grim and terrifying fact.