“Revelation 9:13-19”

Monday, December 18, 2017

“Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind. The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. And this is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm.”

---End of Scripture verses---

The first of the three “woes” (verse 12) represented by the locust-scorpion-menaces that God sent to “torment” (verse 5) His enemies for “five months” being completed, the “sixth angel sounded” his trumpet for the second “woe” (verse 13). All of the trumpet blasts appear to be pointing to no specific events in the history of humanity, but teaching general principles about God’s dealings with the sinful rebellion of mankind, and the providential care he affords His faithful, dutiful followers at any given time and place. Homer Hailey wonderfully summarized the nature of the warnings God delivered by the trumpets in His Nevada Publications commentary on “The Book of Revelation”:

“God has been revealing that wickedness is self-destructive. At the sounding of the first four trumpets God sent forth partial judgments which were to have warned the unregenerated inhabitants of the earth. These first four pointed to (1) the collapse of the sinner’s world in which he trusted (8:7); (2) the fall of any great world power which would drastically affect the society involved (8:8-9); (3) the fall of earth’s eminent men and the folly of idolatry which brings its own waters of wormwood (8:10-11); and (4) the partial darkening of human wisdom and understanding (8:12). These symbols are all drawn from calamities in nature. The sounding of the fifth trumpet revealed the torment of men which accompanies the internal decay and rottenness of society without God; this torment does not kill, but it contributes to the final destruction of any community of men. The sounding of the sixth trumpet introduced the external forces which threaten and finally bring destruction to the ungodly world. Sin and rebellion against God bring terrible judgments, the consequences of darkened human wisdom and its folly.”

The “voice” which spoke to the “sixth angel” proceeded forth from “the golden altar which is before God” (verses 13-14). This is the golden altar of incense that sat before God’s throne containing “the prayers of the saints” which “went up before God” continually (Revelation 8:3-5). The sounding of the sixth trumpet and releasing of the second woe is God’s direct response to the pleas of His pious people for a more severe call to repentance for God’s enemies, and that justice be served. The “great River Euphrates” was a symbol for great military power. At the height of Israel’s dominance in the region, the borders under Solomon’s reign stretched, “from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt” (1 Kings 4:21). After Israel’s territory had been diminished, the world Empires of Assyria, Babylon and Persia launched their conquests for expansion from the banks of the Euphrates River.

At God’s perfectly appointed time (“the hour and day and month and year” – verse 15), the angels “released” an army so enormous that John could not count them, but he “heard the number of them” totaled 200 million (verse 16). The horses had “heads like lions” (verse 17) and “tails…like serpents” (verse 19), and the men who sat upon them had breastplates “the color of fire” (verse 17). This was a fierce, formidable, frightening, “fire-breathing” symbol for the fury that God unleashes against His foes in the form of invading forces. God had used the armies of wicked nations to execute His righteous judgment against rampant immorality and idolatry in times past, and He did so against the Roman world as well. They were weakened by a series of wars with the Parthians that ran well into the 2nd century A.D. before the Lord ultimately toppled the Empire by the Germanic invasions of the Goths and Vandals.

“The trumpets portray a culture collapsing on itself. They represent the demise of the foundational institutions of society, such as government, family, and commerce. The invasions from the insects and armies, coming like organized military forces, spread hurt and death everywhere. They represent the heavy toll that violence exacts upon society. Whether internal or external, this collapse finds its main cause in man’s rejection of God’s value system. Men bring this killing curse upon themselves.” (Harkrider)

Please read the saddest two verses in the whole book of Revelation for tomorrow – Revelation 9:20-21.

Have a blessed day!

-Louie Taylor

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