The bottomless pit has now been opened by an angel that has fallen to earth from heaven. The angels that have been incarcerated in this prison are released onto the earth and are given power. These angels are called locusts and they are spirits just as the scorpions and serpents are spirits which are also angels.
Before we identify who the actual Antichrist is, perhaps a brief recap of what we have learned so far would be beneficial. We have discussed that the Scriptures inform us that a man will arise on the earth in the coming Apocalypse to take control of the world. This man is also called the man of sin and the man of lawlessness.
He will have an accomplice who is a religious leader and he is referred to as the False Prophet. These men will deceive almost the whole world into believing that they are the saviors of mankind. The Antichrist is an impostor who will portray himself as the true Messiah. His sidekick, the False Prophet, may present himself as Imam al-Mahdi, the Islamic Messiah who is eagerly awaited by all Muslims today. They also believe that their beloved Mahdi, when he arrives, will have a lieutenant as his right-hand man and this lieutenant will be none other than, wait for it, Jesus Christ.
Together these two will deceive the majority of the world with lying signs, miracles and wonders.
We looked at the nature of angels and discovered that they are spirit. We noted that everywhere angels appear in Scripture they are called men. This is no surprise because many times in the Bible it states that we are made in the image of God. We also have seen that evil angels are mentioned often with names of animals which are metaphors. Thus, serpents, scorpions and locusts refer to evil spirits which are evil angels; part of the rebel band who rebelled under the power of the Dragon, Satan, and endeavored to usurp the Throne of the Most High God in a coup millennia ago.
It is imperative that we allow the words in scripture to sketch on the canvass of our minds the picture it presents. We must put aside our previous beliefs, notions and ideas and let the Word interpret itself in order to acquire the true meaning of what we read. Thus, with the guidance of the Spirit of Truth, we may be able to glean some of the truths regarding what is coming upon the world and humankind in the near future.
With this in mind, we must remove from our psyche the idea that angels resemble naked children with small wings. Or that they are blond men with huge wings. This is not the picture that scripture paints. These images have come down through the centuries from various artists and no doubt have been inspired by Satan in order to deceive us. Instead we look at what the Bible has to say regarding angels and we form our mind picture from there.
And it portrays angels as men. So every time now that we read the word “angel,” we think of men. It was two men who walked into Sodom back in Genesis 19. And they must have been attractive men as all the men of Sodom wanted to gang-rape them. People have entertained angels unaware. These angels so resembled men that the folks that entertained them did not know that they were actual spirit men; angels.
That they are good-looking men seems logical as angels are created spirit beings and are called in scripture, sons of God. So it follows that His creation would be beautiful beings and I would venture that even the evil angels are very attractive men.
So now we come to those angels who have been locked up in the Abyss because of their sin in the days of Noah. These men are fallen angels and are the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis chapter 6. We will return to this topic presently, but for now let us pick up again the story of the opening of the bottomless pit and the release of the angels who are called locusts in Revelation 9. The actual identity of the man we call the Antichrist is given here and most scholars have totally missed this truth even though it is written in plain language right under our noses. Listen:
“ 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” (Rev. 9:11).
This is he who is called the Beast from the Abyss which is another name for the Antichrist and he is both an angel and a king.
But an angel is a man. So this person who is to appear on the world stage in the coming Apocalypse and take control of the world is a man. A spirit man who is an evil angel who has been locked up in Tartarus since the time of the Flood of Noah some 4400 years ago. His name is Abaddon in Hebrew and in Greek is Apollyon.
But here is the thing. Apollyon is how the Greeks spell Apollo. And Apollo is one of the original gods of Greek and Roman mythology who reigned at Olympus some thousands of years ago along with the other gods, namely; Mars, Saturn, Zeus, Mercury, Poseidon, Jupiter, Sirius, Venus, Orion etc. And interestingly, there were some female goddesses also; Hera, Demeter and Athena of which Athens is named after.
Most learned persons suppose that Apollo and the rest of the Olympian gods are mere flights of fancy and dismiss them as myths. But we are not dealing in myths or fables. Our studies are to do with the revealed Word of truth and holy writ. And it testifies that Apollo is an angel who is locked up in Tartarus because of his role in the sin and violence that pertained in the days of Noah that precipitated the Flood in those bygone days. So the legends which talk of gods on the earth in ancient times may not be the myths that we were led to believe they were.
The other truth we must note well in this verse which speaks of Apollo is that he is called here a “king.” This is vitally important as we advance this investigation into the hidden prophecies of the Apocalypse. For we must allow the scriptures define the concepts we ponder so that the right picture emerges which will in turn give the proper interpretation regarding the message. In this regard the fact that Apollo is called a king is a very telling truth. For we will be examining other verses which talk of kings and we must accept that these other kings are of the same ilk as Apollo if we agree that the scriptures are the only template whereby the Word can interpret itself to us.
In Genesis 6 is the first mention of the Nephilim.
“ When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterwards-when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
Nephilim, is a Hebrew word which means the fallen ones. Some Hebrew scholars insist the these Nephilim were the offspring of the fallen angels and were giants. But most Hebrew scholars agree that this word literally means “the fallen ones.” In the context of the many other places in scripture which speaks of angels falling from heaven to earth, it seems clear to me that the original Nephilim are the sons of God who fell from grace, fell from heaven and fell to earth and then had sexual relations with human women who bore children to them.
These offspring were the giants of the Old Testament and of numerous traditions and historical accounts from all over the world. The Genesis record also squares with the so-called mythologies from many traditions which speaks of gods descending to earth from heaven and taking mortal women to wife who in turn bare children to them. These traditions are well documented in Greek and Roman writings as well as the Egyptian writings such as The Pyramid Texts and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Other traditions from South America to the Far East testify to these truths and speak of gods copulating with women and fathering children.
The book of Enoch fills in many of the blanks in this story which are not covered in scripture. Jude, who was the brother of Jesus, quotes directly from the Book of Enoch in his epistle. This confirms that we can research the testimony of Enoch with a degree of certainty that his writings can be trusted. If it were otherwise, then in no way would he be quoted in the divinely inspired Word of God. So what does Enoch have to say of fallen angels coming to earth and having sexual relations with human women?
Patrick Heron is bestselling author of Apocalypse Soon and The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse.