Trumpet 5 / Vial 5

Revelation 9:1 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.
3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
11 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.
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

Revelation 16:10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

With this trumpet and vial we see the true horror of the judgements and a global human torment. An angel described as a star comes down from heaven. His name is Apollyon in Greek and Abaddon in Hebrew, which translated means 'Destroyer'. Again his name tells us his purpose and we may regard this angel as a personification of the idea of destruction. It is important to note, that he is from God and not one of Satan's angels 'allowed' to go mad among man. God actually gave this angel charge over the key to the bottomless pit or abyss, the contents of which are demons, or angels which have sinned. This wouldn't have been given to Satan for obvious reasons.

These demons take on a form like a locust and from verse 7 to 10 we get a very good idea of what they look like. They are by no means man made, and we cannot read into the descriptions anything resembling the new strike helicopters or any kind of modern weapon. They are described as locusts because of the orders in verse 4,

4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

It is the natural impulse of the locust to go after any green vegetation, but they were commanded not to. I think therefore that the demons were allowed either to posses the bodies of locusts or they were allowed to take on their form, but with certain 'modifications'. They were also told only to attack those who did not have the seal of God in their foreheads. A question now raised is does this mean the 144,000 are the only ones to be spared their torment or does it extend to those who spiritually had the seal of God, those Jews who keep the commandments and now reside in Jerusalem, also those (if any) people who did not take the mark and fight along side the Jew. (I would go with the latter).

The time period Apollyon was given was 5 months and during this time death was not an option. So much so as we see when it says 'And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.' This is truly a terrible time when even death, with all its future torment cannot be called upon to release mankind from this judgement or life. These creatures go through the earth and exact the fifth judgement on all those who reject God. More to the point, who blame God for all the troubles as we see from the fifth vial. Even though mankind must have realised what was happening with the judgements they still do not repent and blame God all the more and blaspheme.

The 5th Vial compounds the 5th trumpet's judgement of those who side with Satan by letting us know that Satan's literal throne on earth and all those who stand by him and the Anti-Christ will be specifically hit. The word 'seat' is used but actually can be interpreted 'throne' or 'a chair of state having a footstool'. We see that neither Satan or the Anti-Christ has the power to help his followers or give protection within their kingdom, Rev 16:10.