Repentance in Revelation 9:20 & 21

14     Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

15     And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

16     And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

17     And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

18     By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

19     For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

20     And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

21     Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

Subject(s) Refusing to Repent:   The rest of the men, which were not killed by the plagues (vs. 20).

Object of Repentance:                  In Verse 20, they "repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:"  Because idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood are the work of human hands, the statement is clearly in apposition to the phrase "the work of their hands."  Accordingly, refusal to repent of the work of their hands is equivalent to refusing to repent of worship of devils and idols and of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone and wood.  In verse 21, the object from which they will not repent is "their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts." 

Consequence of lack of repentance:    It is the position of Clear Gospel Ministries that Jesus' divinity is an article of saving faith.  Jesus is not some Greek god in the Greek pantheon, He is the Creator, the second person our Triune God.  Accordingly, the worship of devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood is best understood as a rejection of Jesus as the one true God.  Idolatry is a soteriological issue, not simply a sin worthy of God's temporal judgment issue of broken fellowship.  In short, it appears that these men would not repent unto saving faith.  However, the eternal consequences of their refusal to repent, are not disclosed in the passage.  The only consequence that can be inferred from the immediate context is God's temporal judgment through the continuation of the plagues of vs. 14-20.

Repentance in Revelation 9:20 & 21