BIRTH PANG NUMBER 8
CHAPTER 10 – THE SHAFT ABYSS
Revelation 9:1,2
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. [2] And he opened the bottomless
pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace;
and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
I am a literal interpreter. That does not mean that I take all the
inspired writings to be absolutely literal.
I am very aware that certain parts of God’s Word are inspired poetically,
figuratively and symbolically, but, unless it yields ridiculous results, I am
always more inclined to accept a literal interpretation over a figurative or symbolic explanation.
In verse one there are some points that can be made
literally concerning the symbols, things, places and events described. First of all, the star is identified by the
personal pronoun “him” as a masculine spiritual being that comes from Heaven.
Secondly, this masculine spiritual being comes to a
physical place – the planet Earth. Now,
putting these two factors together, we have a being sent from Heaven to the
physical earth. This means he is
standing on the surface of what you see in figure 3. He is standing on top of these massive tectonic
plates that float on top of an underground ocean of liquid rock.
Thirdly, this heavenly visitor has been given a key
which represents the authority to unlock something. He has been send to
unlock what he stands upon – the earth’s crust.
The earth is the “bottomless pit.”
There are hundreds of geometric figures that have bottoms, but the earth
is an oblate spheroid and, as such, has no bottom. If it were possible to dig through the earth
you could never reach bottom, for you would simply come out on the opposite
side from which you started. The earth
has no bottom.
Fourthly, I call your attention to the Koine Greek words translated “bottomless pit,” those being phreatos tes abussou,
or literally, SHAFT OF THE ABYSS. This
is a perfect scientific description of these great geological faults shown in
figure 9. They are a great
interconnecting shaft system that extends down through the crust into the
abyss. It is this locked system that the
heavenly being is sent to unlock. He
unlocks the locked plate structure with the power of God symbolized by the key.
Fifthly, please note that the interior of the
bottomless pit is likened to a “great furnace.”
Many scientific texts of today use this term to describe the interior of
the earth,
And, lastly, please notice the results of the
unlocking of the tectonic plates in verse two – a great smoke that rises up to
darken the sun and the atmosphere. This
is precisely what would occur if these huge tectonic plates were unlocked. Volcanic smoke would pour upward into the
earth’s atmosphere along all areas indicated by the dashed lines on figure
3. This smoke would most assuredly
darken the sun, on a worldwide basis, as it collected, and advected,
around the earth under a great temperature inversion which exists just above
the tropopause.