Discerning of Spirits in Revelation 9

The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of my new book, Discerning of Spirits in Revelation 9. I hope you will find it enlightening and encouraging. I will be adding more later.

Chapter 1

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

The things we will learn about this verse are vital for every Christian to understand if we are to come into completion in the Lord Jesus Christ. It has been hidden in allegory down through the centuries because it could only be utilized by the church of the end times. To have had this truth and yet not been able to enter into it would have been difficult for our predecessors and could have led some into error. Therefore, the Holy Spirit chose not to reveal it until this time.

If we are to understand this verse, we must view it as taking place inwardly rather than outwardly in the world. Therefore, all the nouns we identify here will pertain to something within a human being. The picture seems to be outward but can only be properly interpreted as inward.

The Bottomless Pit

My first insight to understanding this verse was regarding the bottomless pit. I knew what a bottomless pit was because of my ministry to satanically ritually abused persons that began back in 1992. I will first explain a little about this abuse and then show how it is related to the bottomless pit.

People who have suffered this kind of abuse often have the ability to see into the spiritual realm. During satanic rituals the veils that God intended to separate us from that realm are stripped away by demons leaving the person vulnerable to the harassment of demonic entities.

In order to survive this horrible physical, emotional and spiritual abuse, the person dissociates by splitting away from their mainstream of consciousness and forming separate personality segments. In this way they can bury their memories of abuse and thereby cope with life to a certain extent. Satanic perpetrators and demons know about dissociation and devise a complicated system of placement of the dissociated parts in their victims. In this way there is a certain order to the victim’s inner world. Dissociated parts are often given names and certain assignments to perform for the cult. The victims, who most often have been abused since infancy, are very fragmented in their identity and confused to the point they may not even know they have ever been abused. The abuse does affect their lives though, leaving them with emotional problems that are often diagnosed as being mental illnesses. Demons from hell are called up by the perpetrators and assigned to guard the fragmented personality parts to keep them tormented and imprisoned. (For a more thorough explanation of this see my book Restoring Survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse.)

Over the years many satanically ritually abused persons have told me they have a pit inside. It is at the very bottom of their inner world. In this pit live the most ferocious demons along with the personality parts that, through extreme abuse, agreed to cooperate with the cult. Everything in Satanism is the reverse of Christianity. The personality parts that cooperated with the cult were formed through extreme abuse in which the victim had to split multiple times in order to do the heinous thing the perpetrators were forcing upon him/her. During this process the good parts of the person split away until a part comprised of mostly sin nature was formed. This part will then cooperate with the cult and the demons. This part, along with the demons, will be placed in the pit which is in the lowest region of the person’s inner world. There will be times when this part is called upon to perform some function for the cult.

I hope the reader can see that this is exactly the opposite of the way God works in us. God permits us to be in situations in life where we have to make difficult decisions. When we choose the high and moral way, which is the way of the cross (take up your cross daily and follow me), then God destroys the sin nature from some aspect of our soul, and the purified soul remains. (For a more complete explanation of how Satanism takes God’s principles and applies them in opposite ways to destroy people’s lives please see my book Sanctification in Reverse: The Essence of Satanic Ritual Abuse).

This is a relatively long explanation of how I came to see that the bottomless pit is something inside a person, but it is essential for us to understand exactly what this pit is. It is the very core of our sin nature. It is in all persons because all persons were born with a sin nature. It is bottomless in that no matter how much we seek to know God and become like him, we will always have this evil thing in us. However, as we will see later in this book, in the end times God will take his people into a whole new realm in him. He will completely destroy the sin nature in us. This will require our cooperation, but as we obey God and die to every carnal desire and false god, Jesus will completely destroy that sin nature. It will no longer have any effect on us. This is revealed here in chapter nine of Revelation, but I have found it multiple places in the Bible where I have done other deep studies whereby outward accounts are viewed inwardly as allegory…allegory always being interpreted by the Scriptures.

Now that we understand that the bottomless pit represents the sin nature in all humans, we can continue on to identify other key words in this verse. Let’s look next at the star that fell from heaven that had been given the key to this bottomless pit.

The Star Falls from Heaven

Some people have interpreted the star in Revelation 9 as being Lucifer because of Isaiah 14:12: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” In the King James Version there is no mention here of a star. However, in several other translations, the word “star” has been added. For example, NLT states: “How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world.” Other versions have similar translations of this verse that include the word “star.” In the Hebrew the word being translated as “star” is actually heylel which means Lucifer and Lucifer means “bringing light.” Our Bible tells us that Satan can appear as “an angel of light.”

Whether or not Lucifer is a star in this Isaiah passage, the fact that the star that falls from heaven in revelation 9 has a key cancels any possibility that this is Satan. Satan does not have keys, but Jesus does. Three others in Scripture are mentioned with keys. Eliakim in Isaiah was given a key by God. Jesus told Peter he would give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven. The only other person with a key is the angel coming down from heaven in Rev 20:1. Since this angel’s mission is to bind Satan for a thousand years, this angel could not possibly be Satan. So there is nothing in Scripture to suggest that Satan has keys.

Jesus is the Morning Star (Rev 22:16). He is also the Daystar (2 Pet 1:19). Additionally he is seen as a star in one of the prophecies given by Balaam when Balak hired him to curse the Israelites:

 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth (Num 24:17).

With Israel as a type of the church, this prophecy states that Jesus will come forth out of Jacob’s family as his descendant (Star out of Jacob). His ruling power (scepter) will arise out of his church (Israel). This power will destroy Moab and Sheth…both types of the sin nature. (Moab was born out of incest between Lot and his daughter. Sheth refers to the Moabites.)

In my interpretation of Revelation 9, Jesus unlocks the secrets of the bottomless pit so the sin nature can be fully exposed. Then the rest of the chapter reveals how individuals will come into the fullness of Christ, but first God will show them the full extent of the sin nature and what is empowering it.

Next let’s look at the Greek word for “fall” used here. There are several Greek words translated “fall” in the New Testament. The particular Greek word used here in Revelation 9 is also used in John 12 where Philip and Andrew came to Jesus telling him that there were certain Greeks that wanted to see him. Jesus answered them by saying:

The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (John 12:23, 24).

Jesus was speaking of his own coming death. He was the corn of wheat…the seed of life that had to fall into the ground and die for God’s perfect will to be accomplished. After his death and resurrection all those longing to see him would have that opportunity. Jesus not only fell down to earth from heaven, but he descended to the very depths even as a seed in the ground to be trodden underfoot. Andrew Jukes’ meditation regarding this is below:

First, as to the “coming” or “falling into the earth.” Few think what this was to the Son of God. Think of the seed cast into the earth; exposed to wintry winds; trodden under the feet of those who drive the rake and harrow over it; buried out of sight, and left alone, as if cast out by God and man, to endure the slow process of a daily dissolution; then melted by rains and heats, until its form is marred, and it seems useless either to God or man. All this, and more, was but the shadow of what the Seed of God endured, in those days of little-estimated humiliation, when, though He had brought God’s life into the world, that life as yet was not manifested. Who shall say what it cost Him to be “sown a natural body” (1 Cor. 15:44); to come from the form of God into the likeness of man; to be made of a woman, under the law; to share the weakness and limitations of a dying, earthly, transitory, life; to come into the lot of sinners, and to live with sinners; to live among such all unknown; so little understood even by His dearest, that when, as He increased in wisdom, He said, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” even His mother “understood not the saying which He spake unto them” (Luke 2:50). And in such humiliation to wear out nearly all this earthly life: all indeed but the last three years, which were still more a daily death. When one thinks that this was only the beginning of the sacrifice, we may perhaps dimly perceive what His coming into the earth must have been to God’s dear Son (Jukes).

It was by Jesus’ example of a perfect life lived in perfect sacrifice for others that our own sinful condition (bottomless pit) could be exposed and opened for us to see the depths of our own depravity as compared to his perfection. Before Jesus came humankind had the law which gave some understanding of sin, but only by seeing it perfectly lived before us could we truly see what it meant. In this way Jesus’ very life was a key that unlocked our understanding of the sin problem in all humans.

We have all been locked into the curse put upon all the living at the time of the fall. This curse involves having a sin nature seen in type here as a bottomless pit. Only Jesus can unlock that curse, and this is what we will see happening here in our continuing study of Revelation 9. We will see the very essence of the sin nature and how it is exacerbated by demonic influences. As we see it we will repent and cooperate with God as he continues to show us what sin actually is and eventually as we cooperate with him, he will destroy that sin nature and we will come into the fullness and image of Christ.

The fact that this Star has a key reinforces the interpretation that this is Christ as seen in the following scriptures:

 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death (Rev 1:18).

 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth (Rev 3:7).

In this chapter we will see how Jesus will use this key to unlock the secrets of the sin nature for us and reveal truths that, by God’s power, will utterly destroy it. Then God’s people will come forth in the fullness of Christ where they will “shine as the brightness of the firmament…and turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever” (Dan 12:3).

There can be no doubt that the timing for this event is now. As Daniel 12:1 states:

…and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

We are definitely living in a time of trouble such as has never been before. There are many manmade, worldwide catastrophes currently in operation any one of which has the potential to destroy all life on earth.

This Daniel passage says that God’s people shall be delivered. This word “delivered” in the Chaldea is malat, and it has an interesting shade of meaning which is “to be smooth, i.e. (by implication) to escape (as if by slipperiness).” As I explain this significance, I think you will see that for God’s people to escape by smoothness or slipperiness is to escape by no longer having a sin nature, i.e. a bottomless pit as signified here in Rev 9:1. When we no longer have a sin nature, we will no longer get old, weak, sick or die. We will live in absolute perfection.

To explain the spiritual significance of smoothness, I refer the reader back to the account of Jacob and Esau in Genesis. These two brothers are well known to be Old Testament types of the spirit (Jacob) and the flesh (Esau). Jacob said to his mother, “Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man” (Gen 27:11). I have found that viewing smoothness and hairiness as spirituality and carnality respectively have consistently worked well in several of my other biblical studies.

Take, for example, Elijah and Elisha. The scriptures say Elijah was a hairy man. James said of Elijah, “Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are” (James 5:17). When Jezebel threatened Elijah with death, he responded as a person acting out of carnality rather than spirituality. He ran away (fear) and wanted to die (depression). He considered that he was the only one who had remained faithful to God (pride).

On the other hand, Elisha may have been bald…at least that is what the mocking children called him as he was going up to Bethel. Of course, a bald head would be smooth thus fitting the type I am seeing here. He had a double portion of the spirit that had been on Elijah and his miracles were more numerous. There was never anything said of him that he possessed anything of carnality. I see Elijah’s going up in the whirlwind and leaving Elisha behind as a type of what God will do in these end times as he separates and removes that which is earthy from that which is spiritual. Then we will do miracles such as Elisha did after Elijah was taken up.

This immediately brings to mind the question, if Elisha was more perfected than Elijah, why didn’t Elisha appear with Moses and Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration rather than Elijah? I believe this was due to the fact that both Elijah and Moses faced great opposition from the people. They were able to comfort Jesus with the comfort wherewith they had been comforted by God to help prepare Jesus for his coming suffering.

To sum up what I have said thus far about the key before continuing on with the last part of this verse, the key reinforces the truth that the Star represents Jesus. He is coming to his church in the end times with a key that will open our understanding as revealed in Revelation 9 thereby enabling us to apply all he has done for us such that we will be released from the curse of the sin nature.