This podcast explains the meaning of the symbols and images used by John in Revelation 9:2-4 to explain what happens during the First Woe when the bottomless pit is opened and black smoke billows forth together with locusts that have the sting of a scorpion. The locusts represent the evil spirits that will be loosed from the bottomless pit at a time of great spiritual darkness symbolized by the black smoke. Unlike real locusts, these metaphorical locusts have the ability to torment mankind during the First Woe in the same way a scorpion sting causes great pain and anguish, but not death. The people singled out for this torment during the First Woe are those that do not have the seal of the living God in their forehead.