Revelation 9:6 Commentary and Bible Study

These seem very solemn and sad words, but this is about Satan’s little season. Men want to do away with themselves: ‘And shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’ This is not only spiritual darkness, but attacks by Satan and his hosts, certain temptations and conduct that will grow much worse at the end of time. Men will be so tormented by pain that they will desire to end their lives, but they will not be able to. Why not? What will stop them? Will the demons so work in their minds that they are unable to carry out their desire to kill themselves? Or will providence intervene to prevent them from taking their own lives? It suggests that forces beyond their control make death impossible to reach. This is a ghastly situation. Suicide is bad enough. It is terrible when life is so dreadful that men believe that death is preferable to life. Of course they are always wrong. The hopelessness and torments of Hades and of hell are far worse than anything on earth, but man constantly underestimates hell’s sorrows. What is this pain? Is it the strike of conscience, the certainty that God will judge them? There is another occasion in the book where men seek death in preference to facing the Lamb whose searing eye penetrates their hearts (Revelation 6:16).But this is not necessarily limited to the literal, though that must be included. It perhaps also comprises escape by means of intoxicating substances, or addicting themselves to things that can carry them into another world, into another place, into another experience. Perhaps all that is included under the symbol: to die to conscious present life and its experience.