The 20th-Century Plague

Reasonably, we could expect Joel's prophecy to have a final fulfillment in the time of the end. How true this has proved to be! At the Bible Students' convention at Cedar Point, Ohio, U.S.A., September 1-8, 1919, a notable outpouring of Jehovah's spirit activated his people to organize a global campaign of preaching. Of all professed Christians, they alone, recognizing that Jesus had been enthroned as heavenly King, spared no effort in publishing abroad that good news. Their relentless witnessing, in fulfillment of prophecy, became as a tormenting plague to apostate Christendom. -Matthew 24:3-8, 14; Acts 1:8.

Revelation, written some 26 years after Jerusalem's destruction, also describes that plague. What does it add to Joel's description? Let us take up the record, as reported by John: "And the fifth angel blew his trumpet. And I saw a star that had fallen from heavens to the earth, and the key of the pit of the abyss was given him." (Revelation 9:1) This "star" is different from that at Revelation 8:10 that John saw in the act of falling. He sees a 'star that had fallen from heaven" and that now has an assignment with respect to this earth. Is this a spirit or a fleshly person? The holder of this "key of the pit of the abyss" is later described as hurling Satan into "the abyss." (Revelation 20:1-3) So he must be a mighty spirit person. At Revelation 9:11, John tells us that the locusts have "a king, the angel of the abyss." Both verses must refer to the same individual, since the angel holding the key of the abyss would logically be the angel of the abyss. And the star must symbolize Jehovah's appointed King, since anointed Christians acknowledge only the one angelic King, Jesus Christ. -Colossians 1:13; 1 Corinthians 15:25.

The account continues: " And he opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke ascended out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun was darkened, also the air, by the smoke of the pit. And out of the smoke locusts came forth upon the earth; and authority was given them, the same authority as the scorpions of the earth have." (Revelation 9:2, 3) Scripturally, "the abyss" is a place of inactivity, even of death. (Compare Romans 10:7; Revelation 17:8, 20:1, 3) The small band of Jesus' brothers spent a short time in such an "abyss" of relative inactivity at the end of the first world war (1918-1919). But when Jehovah poured his spirit upon his repentant servants in 1919, they swarmed forth to meet the challenge of the work that lay ahead.

As John observes, the release of the locusts is accompanied by much smoke, like "the smoke of a great furnace." That is how it proved to be in 1919. The situation darkened for Christendom and for the world in general. (Compare Joel 2:30, 31). The release of those locusts, the John class, was actually a defeat for Christendom's clergy, who had schemed and plotted to kill the Kingdom work for good and who now rejected God's Kingdom. Evidence of a smoke like pall started to spread over apostate Christendom as that locust band was given divine authority and began to exercise it in proclaiming powerful judgment messages. Christendom's "sun"-her appearance of enlightenment- suffered an eclipse , and "the air" became thick with declarations of divine judgments as "the ruler of the authority of the air" of this world was shown to be Christendom's god. -Ephesians 2:2; John 12:31; 1 John 5:19.

Next time: Those Tormenting Locusts!