The Bitter Star Text: Revelation 8:10-11
Introduction: Covenantal Poison
When modern Christians come to a passage like this one, their imaginations are immediately captured by the latest headlines. They think of the Chernobyl disaster, the Russian word for which is wormwood. They think of asteroids, nuclear fallout, or some other kind of ecological catastrophe threatening the water supply of the entire globe. But this kind of newspaper exegesis, this frantic attempt to map the symbolic visions of John onto our evening news, is a fundamental misreading of the book of Revelation from the ground up.
The first thing we must always remember is that this book was written to first century Christians, and John was told to write down the things which must "shortly take place" (Rev. 1:1). This is not a secret decoder ring for the twenty-first century; it is a prophetic revelation, an unveiling, of the covenantal judgment God was bringing upon apostate, first-century Jerusalem. The trumpets are not random disasters; they are the new Jericho. They are the liturgical blasts announcing the collapse of the walls of that great and wicked city which had crucified the Lord of Glory.
So when we read of a star falling from heaven and poisoning the waters, we should not be thinking about astrophysics or industrial pollution. We should be thinking about apostasy. We should be thinking about covenantal rot. This is a judgment that strikes at the very source of a people's life. God is not describing a random act of celestial mechanics; He is describing the consequences of a spiritual rebellion that has turned the springs of life into fountains of death.
The Text
And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters.
And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.
(Revelation 8:10-11 LSB)
A Star Falls from Heaven (v. 10)
The third angel sounds his trumpet, and the judgment that follows is focused and symbolic.
"And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters." (Revelation 8:10 LSB)
First, we have to use the Bible's dictionary to define our terms. What is a star? In our materialistic age, we think of a star as a massive ball of flaming gas trillions of miles away. But in the Scriptures, stars are frequently identified with angels, messengers, or rulers. The angels of the seven churches are called stars (Rev. 1:20). Jesus is the bright and morning star (Rev. 22:16). The angels in the sky who announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds were a heavenly host, stars who sang. So, a star is a ruling authority, a luminary, someone placed in the heavens to give light and guidance.
A falling star, therefore, is an apostate leader. It is a ruler, a teacher, a high priest, who abandons his God-given station and plummets to the earth. This is not a quiet resignation; he falls "burning like a torch." This is a spectacular, public, and fiery rebellion. It is a glorious authority that has become an infamous spectacle of ruin. Think of how Isaiah described the fall of the king of Babylon: "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!" (Isaiah 14:12). Or think of how Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18).
And where does this fallen authority land? "On a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters." The judgment is precise. It strikes the sources of life. For any nation, the rivers and springs are essential for survival. But for a covenant nation, the spiritual symbolism is even more potent. The law of God, true teaching, and righteous judgment are the "waters" that give life to the people. The Word of God is living water. This judgment, then, is aimed directly at the spiritual headwaters of the nation of Israel. The teaching authority, the priesthood, the Sanhedrin, the very places the people were supposed to go for refreshment and life, are the places being poisoned.
The Poison of Apostasy (v. 11)
The nature of this poison is made explicit in the next verse.
"And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter." (Revelation 8:11 LSB)
The star is given a name, and in the Bible, names reveal character. His name is Wormwood. Wormwood is a plant, artemisia, known for its intense, nauseating bitterness. But we don't have to guess at the meaning. The Old Testament consistently uses wormwood as the symbol for the bitter fruit of idolatry and rebellion against God. Moses warns Israel that if a man among them turns to idols, he will be a "root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood" (Deut. 29:18). Through Jeremiah, God says that because His people have forsaken Him to follow Baal, "behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink" (Jer. 9:15). He says the same of the profane prophets in Jerusalem: "I will feed them with wormwood and make them drink the water of gall" (Jer. 23:15).
Wormwood is the taste of apostasy. It is the bitter harvest you reap when you sow rebellion. The falling star, this apostate leadership, does not just bring bitterness; he is bitterness. His very essence is the poison of idolatry. Who is this? This is a perfect description of the corrupt high priesthood and the Sanhedrin in the years leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. Men like Annas and Caiaphas were supposed to be stars in Israel's heaven, guiding the people to God. Instead, they became burning torches of rebellion, orchestrating the murder of the Messiah. They chose Caesar over Christ. They loved money and power more than righteousness. They fell from their exalted position and landed right in the springs of Israel's spiritual life.
The result was inevitable: "a third of the waters became wormwood." The teaching that flowed from the Temple, the judgments that came from the council, the spiritual direction of the nation, it all became bitter poison. Instead of the living water of the gospel, they offered the people the wormwood of legalism, hypocrisy, and nationalism that was set in defiance of God's anointed King. And the consequence was death. "Many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter." This was first a spiritual death. The people drank the poison of their leaders and were damned by it. And it culminated in the horrific physical death of the siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, where the nation that rejected the Prince of Life was given over completely to death.
Conclusion: The Enduring Antidote
This is not simply a record of a tragedy that befell the Jewish nation two thousand years ago. The principle of Wormwood is a perpetual danger. Whenever the leaders of God's people, whether in a nation or in a church, turn away from the pure springs of God's Word, they become falling stars. Their teaching, no matter how brilliant or fiery it may appear, becomes wormwood. It poisons the flock. False doctrine is not a harmless difference of opinion; it is a bitter water that brings death.
We see it today whenever churches abandon the gospel for political ideologies, for therapeutic moralism, or for sexual revolution. They are offering wormwood to thirsty people. They are poisoning the springs.
But God has provided an enduring antidote to all bitter waters. In the wilderness, when the Israelites came to the waters of Marah and could not drink because they were bitter, God showed Moses a tree. "And he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet" (Exodus 15:25). That tree was a picture, a type, of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the tree that sweetens the bitter waters of our sin and rebellion. The cross is what takes the judgment we deserve and turns it into the life we do not.
The star named Wormwood fell because he rejected the Morning Star. The waters of Jerusalem became bitter because they rejected the Fountain of Living Waters. Our only safety, our only source of true life, is to drink deeply and exclusively from the water that Christ provides, the water of His Word, made sweet for us by the glorious wood of His cross.