Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet,

   Rev. Chapter 9 NLT

   1 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.. . . .11 Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; . . . .

   13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice speaking from . . .presence of God.  14 And the voice said to the sixth angel who held the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great Euphrates River.”  15 Then the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were turned loose to kill one-third of all the people on earth.  16 I heard the size of their army, which was 200 million mounted troops. 

   17  And in my vision, I saw the horses and the riders sitting on them. The riders wore armor that was fiery red and dark blue and yellow. . . .18 One-third of all the people on earth were killed by these three plagues—by the fire and smoke and burning sulfur that came from the mouths of the horses.  . . . 

   20 But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk!  21 And they did not repent of their murders or their witchcraft or their sexual immorality or their thefts. 

As depressing as these passages can be, when taken alone, without the wondrous visions of Heaven, of the Throne of God, and of the Saints praising God, There is a glorious point. God is perfect and his perfection includes justice. God provided a means by which humanity could be redeemed from the consequence deserved by choosing to be evil and self centric. God's love is forgiving but God's Justice requires that those not electing to humble themselves and accept Christ's sacrifice and Lordship cannot be allowed to escape the consequence of their choices. God continues to allow the supernatural events to take lives of those who will not believe, as a witness to those who might believe. The fallen star (Satan) opening the bottomless pit and releasing his army of torturing locust was permitted by God. Even though Satan was fighting against God, we see that all he can do is to torture humanity. Humanity is not necessarily aligning with Satan, they simply align with self and have self in common with Satan, the demons and the rest of fallen humanity. The terrors are giving them time to yet repent. But as we see from verses 20-21, they refuse to repent and insist on remaining in self-will 

There is yet time for those whom we love to repent. There is yet time for us who Love Christ to teach those who do not know Him, that they can be delivered from this future terror. We don't know how much time there is. Why would we wait any longer. Who should we tell about Christ's love today? Tomorrow?

Your servant in Christ's love
Dan
drdanelliott@gmail.com