Revelation 9:10

And they have tails like unto scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men five months.

In their tails is their power ... The scorpion has a relatively long tail; and the fact of these war-horse like things having power in their tails would appear to symbolize the "final impact" or "the end result" of their influence. The evil of a false theory, like Communism, for example, is seen, not at first, when it glamorized, idealized, and advocated as a cure of all social ills, but later, when the mask is off, and repression, tyranny, death, and destruction are nakedly enthroned above the unhappy peoples who have been deceived. Certainly this view must be accounted as reasonable as that which finds here a reference to Turkish horsemen who fired their arrows over the tails of their horses after turning around to retreat from a cavalry charge!

The scholars who see this fifth trumpet as a "symbol of the forces of decay and corruption which God used to undermine the Roman Empire,"[42] are not wrong, except in their limitation of the phenomenon described here to a particular period. For example, homosexuality was one of the lifestyles deriving from sensuality and wickedness which figured prominently in the downfall of Rome, as pointed out by many; but the same gross evil has surfaced again and again in several periods of social decline and overthrow of established order. "The motif in these judgments is reflected many times throughout history, but the primary focus is the ultimate conflict between God and Satan which brings history to a close."[43] That conflict is going on now; and the old locust game is doing a flourishing business on every street in the world.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.,