I was in a large multi-story hotel in the Nevada desert near Las Vegas, looking out of a large window at the bleak landscape. Brown parched hills baking in the hot desert sun, formed by layers of sedimentary rock that had been pushed upward by great tectonic forces. Many other people were around me. So the room could have been a mezzanine or gathering place. Suddenly I saw a black pillar of smoke rising from just behind a nearby ridgeline. Like a raging wildfire, it grew very fast, coming toward the city, expanding into two or three pillars, and then a solid wall of firey smoke, black like burning oil. I was surprised by the intensity of the fire because there was no visible vegetation burning—only dry rock.
I was startled and frightened by the sight, but no one else seemed to notice or be concerned about the approaching danger. Peering deeply into the smoke, I saw red hot flames coming up from the ground. The fire then began to move up the valley toward the city. They were odd-looking flames, like a translucent wall of fire, disappearing then reappearing within a light haze of smoke, each time getting closer and closer. I tried warning those around me, but they were consumed with their daily activities.
“And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.”
“They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And [b]they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.” (Revelation 9:2-6).