From Generation Word’s Monday Night Bible Study through Revelation
Demon Release and Angelic Invasion

When the seventh seal is opened in Revelation 8:1 there is silence in the throne room of God as the contents of the scroll are revealed. The coming events stun all the gathered angels and redeemed men. They see for the first time the awesome and awful contents of the scroll that has been sealed since eternity past.

The sounding of the first four trumpets bring about four natural disasters on the earth:
1) series of earthquakes to trigger volcanic activity burning 1/3 of earth
2) large meteor enters our atmosphere & crashes in the ocean resulting in worldwide tsunamis.
3) a comet passes through our atmosphere, the fall out of its tail contaminates 1/3 of the fresh water
4) the previous 3 trumpets either speed the earth’s rotation up so that earth loses 8 hours of a day or the atmosphere is so contaminated that 8 of 24 hours are completely dark.

The next trumpets are proceeded by the warning, “Woe! Woe! Woe!” The next two disasters will not be natural. They will be demonic warnings for the people of the earth to repent before the great day of the judgment of God.

The fifth trumpet sends an angel to the abyss with a key to unlock it and release demons and fallen angels. These are those that were locked up due to their rebellion against God during man’s time on earth. Lucifer and his angels where cast to the earth when they originally rebelled against God (Ez.28; Is.14; Lk.10:18). Since that time the worst demons have been prevented from being active on the earth by being sent to the abyss.

2 Pt. 2:4 says, “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell (Gr. “Tartarus” or abyss).” The opening of the abyss results in the release of years of built up “smoke” and the appearance on earth of hordes of the worst demons. They are called “locust”, but are clearly not natural since they do not eat green grass but instead torment men to the place of suicide. They have a king named “Destruction”.

The fact that they have human like faces indicates they have personality. The world has never seen anything like this since the days of Noah.

The sixth trumpet releases the four demonic angels “bound” at the Euphrates. The fact that they have been “bound” indicates they are evil and have been restrained in their activity. Several things indicate that these are the same angelic powers of the world empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. Two of them are identified to Daniel as “prince of Persia” and “prince of Greece.” (Dn. 10) They and their angelic military have been contained at the Euphrates through out the church age.

The release of these four prince angels also unleashes their angelic troops who are said to number 200,000,000. (Rev. 9:16) John repeats the number as if anticipating our disbelief and says “I heard their number.” This is not a human army because the context is still angelic. This angelic invasion will kill 1/3 of mankind, or about 1.5 billion people.