The sixth trumpet sounds today, releasing the second woe.
"The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said 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 kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind." (Revelation 9:13-15) We don't know the owner of the voice that speaks from the altar. It may be the voice of the angel who ministered at this altar in Revelation 8, offering incense to God along with the prayers of His people.
I think we can be fairly certain that the four angels who are bound at the Euphrates River are fallen angels. I can't imagine any reason why God would place His faithful angels in restraints like prisoners. We don't know what these four angels did to merit such punishment, but there is a precedent for the chaining of wicked angels, for the Lord's brother Jude spoke of a particular group of angels who were so wicked in their rebellion that the Lord placed them in chains where they will remain until the day of judgment. (Jude 1:6) The angels Jude speaks of can't be the four angels at the Euphrates, or else we wouldn't yet see the angels being released, but it appears that these four want to bring death on human beings. They may have been so vicious in their hatred of mankind that God had to put them in chains long ago, and only now in Revelation 9 does He have any use for them. He is going to release them to do what their evil hearts want to do. Though they take delight in causing harm, they are only able to do what God allows them to do. They can't wipe out the human race. They will only be allowed to take the lives of a third of the population left on earth in those days.
Remember, the earth's population has decreased significantly by Chapter 9. All who belong to Christ were taken to heaven before the Great Tribulation began, and this means billions of people vanished. In addition, we've learned in our study that war, famine, and disease took the lives of many who were left behind. We found out that a number of people who accepted Christ during the Great Tribulation lost their lives due to persecution for their faith. On top of all this, we've seen some major natural disasters and plagues occurring on the pages of Revelation, and we've been told that many lost their lives due to these events. It's impossible to accurately speculate what the world population is in Revelation 9, but it doesn't come close to comparing to our world population today. The Lord let the four angels loose to take the lives of a third of that population.
Do any Christians lose their lives as a result of the sixth trumpet being blown? I tend to think not, based on the concluding verses of our passage today, but first we are going to take a look at what happens when the four angels are released from their chains. They are going to lead a vast army. "The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number." (Revelation 9:16) This army is made up of two hundred million troops. No earthly army has ever been this large. If we add together the number of troops in all the armies involved in the first or second world wars, they still would not come close to numbering two hundred million. Considering that the world population has been drastically reduced by Revelation 9, it's doubtful that an army of this size could be amassed. Just as the locusts from yesterday's study were of supernatural origin, I think the enormous army in our passage today is of supernatural origin.
The description of these troops and their horses is nothing like anything we've ever seen. "The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having head with which they inflict injury." (Revelation 9:17-19) The only way I can fathom this being an army of human origin is if John is describing high tech weaponry. We don't fight much from horseback anymore, and an army of two hundred million has never been known to exist even with the world population at its peak, but if these horses and their riders represent unmanned weaponry (such as drones or computer-guided missiles) then John may be talking about two hundred million of these deadly objects, not two hundred million actual men and horses.
The Lord forbade the locusts of the fifth trumpet (the first woe) to take the lives of human beings. They were only allowed to cause a great deal of discomfort to those who had not yet accepted Christ during the Great Tribulation. I believe the purpose of this was so that many who had rejected the Lord up to that point would repent and turn to Him. They had continued to reject Him in spite of the war, famine, disease, and natural disasters occurring all around them. They were able to resist the call of God during those events. They were still sound in body, so they had the strength to keep telling themselves everything was going to be alright. But it's hard to pretend everything is alright when your body is in a lot of pain. The locust plague was intended to get the attention of those who had successfully managed to keep pushing God to the side even while the world was falling down around them.
We don't know if anyone repented during the locust plague. I think some did. But many continued to resist the Lord and blaspheme His name, so the woe of the sixth trumpet allows a third of these people to be killed. You would think that this would serve as a warning to those who remain alive and that they might take stock of their lives and made things right with God, but John is going to tell us that they don't. This indicates to me that those killed by the second woe were not people who had accepted Christ, but that they were from among those still living in opposition to God. John concludes today by describing the character of those who, in spite of all that's happened, have no interest in worshiping their Creator. "The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood---idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts." (Revelation 9:20-21)
This group is made up of idolaters, murderers, occultists, adulterers, and thieves. They prefer this type of living over holy living. They believe in living for themselves and in "following their hearts". In our day we often hear people say, "I have to follow my heart," and a lot of the time they are using this expression to try to justify something they know is wrong. For example, I've known a few people who walked away from a spouse and children in order to be with someone else, and their excuse was, "I have to follow my heart". We can't follow our hearts if our hearts are telling us to do things that are contrary to the word of God. The prophet Jeremiah said, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." (Jeremiah 17:9) If we allow our lives to be led by our emotions, we are going to do deceitful and wicked things. That is why God has given us His word so we can lead our lives according to what is good and right and holy. We are not at the mercy of our emotions. God created us with intelligent minds that are capable of overriding our emotions. He gave us the ability to think things through, and if we want to live godly lives we have to shine the light of God's word on all our major decisions. Our hearts will lie to us. Our emotions will overwhelm us if we let them. But God has equipped us with the ability to reason things out, and He intends for us to use our reasoning by comparing our motives and our deeds with what His holy word says.
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