Saturday, April 12, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Revelation 9
Key Verse
Revelation 9:11 — “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.”
Devotional Thought
The trumpets have been sounding, and now the fifth angel blows and John watches a star fall from heaven to earth. This is no mere meteor; it is a being granted the key to the bottomless pit, and when he opens it, smoke rises like the smoke of a great furnace, darkening the sun and the air. Out of that smoke come locusts with power like scorpions—but they are commanded to harm neither grass nor tree nor any green thing. Their torment is reserved only for those who have not the seal of God in their foreheads. Here is a strange and terrible mercy: even in judgment, God marks out His own. The locusts cannot kill; they can only torment for five months, and their king is named Abaddon, which means Destruction, and Apollyon, which means Destroyer.
Then the sixth angel sounds, and a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God commands the release of four angels bound at the great river Euphrates. They have been prepared for this very hour, day, month, and year. An army of two hundred million horsemen comes forth, their breastplates of fire and jacinth and brimstone, their horses’ heads like lions, fire and smoke and brimstone issuing from their mouths. A third of mankind is killed by these three plagues. And yet—and this is the heartbreak of the chapter—the rest of the men who were not killed still repented not. They did not turn from their idols of gold and silver, brass and stone and wood, nor from their murders, sorceries, fornication, and thefts.
We read this on an April Saturday, with spring greening the world outside our windows, and the contrast is stark. The grass and trees are spared in the vision, but human hearts are not softened. We live in a day when mercy still calls sinners to repentance, when the seal of God rests upon His people, and when the pit remains closed by the hand of a sovereign God. The question Revelation 9 presses upon us is not whether judgment is real—it plainly is—but whether we will let it drive us to repentance while there is still time.
Reflection
- The locusts were forbidden to touch the grass or any green thing, but only those without the seal of God—what does this tell us about how God distinguishes His people even in seasons of judgment, and how should that shape the way we live today?
- Twice we are told that the survivors “repented not”—not of idolatry, murder, sorcery, fornication, or theft. What idols of gold, silver, or wood might be hiding in your own heart, and what would genuine repentance look like this week?
Prayer
Lord God, You alone hold the keys of the bottomless pit, and You alone set the bounds of every trial. We read of Abaddon and Apollyon, of fire and smoke and brimstone, and we tremble—not because we doubt Your justice, but because we know our own hearts are prone to wander. Thank You that in Christ we are sealed by Your Spirit, marked as Your own. Grant us repentance where we have clung to idols of gold and silver, of comfort and pride. Soften what has grown hard in us. Keep us faithful while mercy still calls, until the day every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.