Revelation 9:13-21

In our last study, we began with the ruler of a demon horde, perhaps Lucifer himself in his role as the Destroyer, opening the doors of hell itself and unleashing a terrible plague of demonic, locust-like demons that tormented man for five months and were not allowed to kill men even if they wanted to die. It was a terrible judgment on the Earth, and it gets worse this time as death is once again permitted to operate.

I had to think a bit about this text. What I see is the unifying theme to the passage is not only the trumpet judgments of woe but specifically the idea that the men who have been through absolutely horrific judgments from the beginning of this “time of Jacob’s trouble” know that they are facing the wrath of God for certain now. There can be no denying it, and they still will not repent of their sins and believe that the Lord Jesus paid the price for all their sins by dying in their place on the cross, but instead continue down their proud course of self-destruction and damnation. Beloved, that’s insane. Every time they survive another horrible woe on the earth, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, shake their fist in the air, and holler back, “Is that all you’ve got? Bring it on.” This is the second woe, so to speak, the demonic attack of this great hellish army. You would think, by now, that the horror would make them think.

Some will think. If they have not yet taken the mark of loyalty to the beast, which may or may not have arrived on the scene yet, they may. We will look at that mark of loyalty when we get to that part of the text. Some of those will see the price the Lord paid to save them from the fate of all men if they do not stop their descent into the madness of sin and believe that He really did pay the price for them and turn away from darkness toward Him and His light. Most will not. I have no idea of the proportions, but if it is anything like today’s statistics, that’s maybe one in ten. The word “remnant” is used in prophetic passages in the Old Testament for a reason.

The terror that is taking place at this time on Earth will not be able to be avoided once it begins. Both those who repent and those who will not repent will suffer in these events in this “Day of the Lord” as He pours out His wrath on unrepentant sinners everywhere. He will remove all of their hiding places, false gods, and excuses. Welcome to the Great Tribulation.

I broke the text into the following thought units:

KV14: The Sixth Trumpet Judgment

14: one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

13-16: The Bound (Fallen) Angel Army

17-19: The “Horses” and their “Riders”

20-21: And They Will Still Not Repent…

The title here is obvious since we are more or less trying to look at one judgment at a time. What is terrifying is what the text describes. After a special set of demons were able to harm but not kill people for five months, those go away and give place to their big brothers, who are ready to kill a third of all humanity that remains. At this point, more than half of the earth’s population will have been wiped out in one catastrophe or another, and more have been murdered and made into Christian martyrs because they will not renounce the Lord Jesus. None of this will be very pretty or clean. Let’s get into the text.

KV14: The Sixth Trumpet Judgment

14: one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

I find it interesting what Reformer and Puritan Matthew Henry has to say on this passage, so I will read it to you. “The sixth angel sounded, and here the power of the Turks seems the subject. Their time is limited. They not only slew in war, but brought a poisonous and ruinous religion. The antichristian generation repented not under these dreadful judgments. From this sixth trumpet learn that God can make one enemy of the church a scourge and a plague to another. The idolatry in the remains of the eastern church and elsewhere, and the sins of professed Christians, render this prophecy and its fulfillment more wonderful. And the attentive reader of Scripture and history, may find his faith and hope strengthened by events, which in other respects fill his heart with anguish and his eyes with tears, while he sees that men who escape these plagues, repent not of their evil works, but go on with idolatries, wickedness, and cruelty, till wrath comes upon them to the utmost.” Clearly, he thought of this as involving earthly nations and forces as in the past, and he may not be wrong, but I see some other things that tell me that there are also other applications of the text. In the past, I was also a subscriber to this kind of thinking, but I suspect there are other levels of understanding this. Don’t mistake my thought as Gnostic. This isn’t secret knowledge that is only available to “true initiates.” It can be discovered by anyone that has the Holy Spirit living inside them. It is best to face the issues and questions that arise with a reliance on God and trust that He will reveal to you what you need to know from the text, right?

My very first question is, “Why are there four fallen angels?” The answer is less than pleasing, but it is three words long: I don’t know. I suppose it is because there are four of them. It is what they do and their condition that is indicative of any information we can glean from the text. In fact, let’s look at that now.

13-16: The Bound (Fallen) Angel Army

We will see why I call them fallen angels as we go through the text, so I will not comment on this. This army has one goal: To destroy all of the humans that they find, which will amount to one-third of the survivors to this point. It isn’t a fanciful thing, and the text says it, as hard as it may be to believe it.

13: Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,

The first thing we see is that the altar of incense from earlier can apparently speak. I mean, John heard its voice, right? There are more plausible answers than that, in my opinion, but I do think we should consider that everything God makes has a kind of life within it. Why shouldn’t this be a talking altar with talking parts? Any doubt I may have here is irrelevant. What I think is actually happening though is that the Lord is giving the commands from somewhere that John is not looking at the moment, but it doesn’t say, so I cannot be certain.
What we do know is what the horns of the altar are. On earth, we can read what happened to the horns of the altar in Deuteronomy 29:12 – “You shall take some of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger; and you shall pour out all the blood at the base of the altar.” On the Brazen Altar in the temple, these horns could be grasped by those seeking sanctuary. 1 K. 1:50 says, “And Adonijah was afraid of Solomon, and he arose, went and took hold of the horns of the altar.”
In his treatise titled Union and Communion, Hudson Taylor meditated about what the horns did in the use of the altar during a sacrifice: They were used to tie the sacrifice down to the altar. He says, “The High Priest bore the names of the twelve tribes upon his heart, each name being engraved as a seal in the costly and imperishable stone chosen by God, each seal or stone being set in the purest gold; he likewise bore the same names upon his shoulders, indicating that both the love and the strength of the High Priest were pledged on behalf of the tribes of Israel. The bride would be thus upborne by Him who is alike her Prophet, Priest, and King, for love is strong as death; and jealousy, or ardent love, retentive as the grave. Not that she doubts the constancy of her Beloved, but that she has learned, alas! the inconstancy of her own heart; and she would be bound to the heart and arm of her Beloved with chains and settings of gold, ever the emblem of divinity. Thus the Psalmist prayed, ‘Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.’ It is comparatively easy to lay the sacrifice on the altar that sanctifies the gift, but it requires divine compulsion–the cords of love–to retain it there. So here the bride would be set and fixed on the heart and on the arm of Him who is henceforth to be her all in all, that she may evermore trust only in that love, be sustained only by that power.” Today, as we serve Christ and sacrifice our lives to Him as living sacrifices, it is our love for Him that binds us to the spiritual altar of Christ. The horns are the love that binds the sacrifice of the saints to God. It is these same horns that now speak, and we need to hear what they speak.

14: one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

The thing that helps the love that God gives us for Him, that agape love of choice that is self-deprecating and self-sacrificing, speaks and says, “Release the judgment.” Four fallen angels are the commander of the army that we are going to look at a bit later in this study. People do not have a concept that love can speak harsh judgment, but Beloved, it can and will.
How do we know these are fallen angels? I believe it is because they are bound. I cannot find any example anywhere in Scripture where the elect angels, the good guys, are ever bound. There would be no need; they would not violate the will of God. See what the “presence angel,” one of the angels who stands in the presence of God and does whatever he is commanded, does in response to the command of love.

15: 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.

That non-fallen angel does what it is told. The only reason angels would be bound is if they will NOT do anything they do not want to do, which is most often “obey God.” Here, their interests would align with the will of God, and so they will affirmatively act on the command. What is the command? It chills to the bone. The command is to kill a third of all humans still living on the dying planet Earth.

16: The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.

This verse is somewhat of a transitional verse for me in that it introduces the 200-million-man army. John even feels the need to explain that he heard the number of soldiers, and in the next section, we will look at the description of them and how they fit into the divine actions going on in this trumpet judgment.

Beloved, I am (still) learning that everything has a context. Love will speak judgment when it must. If a man kills a woman because she denies him, that is called murder. Love speaks a command in that very real case of which I am too familiar. Love said to imprison the man for 25 years in a place where he can never hurt another young lady. Well, actually, that is what Canada said. Love still has me praying for the man, who I believe now was a false convert because of his actions. My point is that love speaks regardless of the consequences because it must. Such a man will face another judgment after we are all gone. It will give true justice to the man, and there will not need to be an appeal because all parties will agree it is justice. Until then, we will leave him to He who sees and He who knows to do what He wants in this case. Everything happens because God wills it to happen the way it happens. The amazing part of this is that He does it by using the wills of His enemies to accomplish it and THEN adds His own response. Moving on.

17-19: The “Horses” and their “Riders”

Please note the use of air quotes. These are used to indicate that the horses aren’t really horses and the riders aren’t what they appear to be. Following the hermeneutic that these horses are infernal creatures that carry other infernal creatures, we have a sort of cavalry for a charge at the population of Earth. Remember, their assigned task is to kill a third of humanity that has survived everything to this point. We know that from the text…and there are a whole lot of them from the last verse. Now, we will see the steeds and their riders in detail in the text.

17: 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.

Let me be clear: I am suggesting that this is apocalyptic literature, and there is more in the text than meets the eye. There are scholars out there who suggest that the breastplate of the riders are the colours of the flag of China. Although that is true, the flags of Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Sarawak (Indonesian area), and Spain also have those colours. I think there is less information in looking at things because some have suggested it in the past. The connection comes from Rev. 16:12, where the reference connects this army with the kings of the East. “The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east.” There is another way of looking at this, and I think that is the one we should use.
The reason I say this is because the kings of the east, who probably are Chinese, do not rule these riders. It is the four angels that are chained in a specific location near or in the Euphrates River that command this army. Because we know that these are fallen angels because they are bound, that makes the “horses” infernal steeds and the riders demons from the newly opened pit of hell. Their breastplates are clearly the colours of flame, indicative of the very fires of hell itself. If John meant anything else, it is also concurrently true with that. If it is not clear that these are demonic beings, their description will make it clear.
I grew up on a farm and even had my own horse. I’ve seen a number of horses and ridden more than a few. I have never seen one with a head like a lion, never mind a lion that could breathe fire, smoke, and brimstone (sulphur gas, maybe?). I know that some will say “allegory” here, but that allegory is still restricted to infernal creatures from the description, so stop arguing. Remember the fire, smoke, and brimstone. That’s going to come up in the next verse.

18: 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.

By the time these creatures have accomplished their set goal, more than half of mankind will have been killed in violent and horrible ways. Of the ones that die as a result of this trumpet judgment, they will die either by being burned to death, by asphyxiation from the smoke, or possibly by asphyxiation by sulphur inhalation or direct exposure to it as a corrosive. That does not sound like a party I would want to attend. I used to be a volunteer firefighter. I had to take hazmat courses for this. These are all painful, awful, terrifying, horrid ways to die. That awaits a full third of the survivors of everything that has gone before. Gee, it’s almost like it’s a targeted attack. Wait a minute…it is. It really is. The wrath of God is being directed by God’s hand on an unrepentant human race. Don’t forget that. God is angry with the wicked every day, and when this day comes, God will no longer contain His anger. Again, I ask, “If you know you can escape all of this by repenting of your sins and believing that God atoned for your sins Himself, what are you waiting for?”

19: 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.

John gives new information here. We know they can spit out flame, smoke, and sulphur from their mouths. And they have serpents for tails, and they bite?!? What kind of Dungeons and Dragons monster is this? I didn’t see this in the Monster Manual or Fiend Folio when I was in high school! I am aware that some think of this as modern cavalry, that is, helicopters, but I’ve never seen helicopter pilots in red and yellow suits, even in the Chinese army. I admit that 200 million helicopters would be overwhelming, but I prefer the more spiritual interpretation here because of their task: the elimination of a third of the population of the planet. Regardless of what country’s military this might be, this is not a natural human response unless demonic influence of some kind is involved at the individual level. With the kind of numbers that are posted here, it is the only thing that makes sense. Helicopters can be shot down. Demonic horses, not so much. This is terrifying, Beloved! And more terrifying is to be in their sights.

Some probably think I’m letting my imagination run away with me, but I don’t think so. Before September 11, 2001, who saw planes used as directed explosives? Not many, I think. Now it’s a major consideration in military defense, and we are only 23 years past those events. The descriptions of these riders and the beasts they ride cannot be a purely natural phenomenon. Moving on.

20-21: And They Will Still Not Repent…

The effect of this army and the death and destruction they cause has a single reason for being and occurring at this point: to turn men away from their insane path of destruction and toward their loving creator, that is, to make them repent and believe He paid the price for all sin. You’ll see why I say that from the text.

20: The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk;

The ones that die in this coming onslaught die according to the will of God, who is exercising Himself to work His wrath on a sinful planet. The ones who live are being offered a chance to turn to Him because He is loving and merciful. I know that seems strange to say with this as the backdrop image we have painted, but because God does not change at any time, we can know it to be true. He will love creation as much then as He does now, and turning away from sin will always be an option for man. The problem is that men will not turn. Look at what the verse says!
Did not repent of the works of their hands. ἔργων τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν. Works [of] the hands their. The deeds they performed offended a holy God, just like Isaiah said in Isa. 64:6a – “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;” The Hebrew text there uses a phrase that means used menstrual rags. The translators here are trying not to offend, but Isaiah had no such worry. All of the deeds we do to virtue signal, to look good in our own eyes and the world’s, are like used menstrual rags. We offend God with them, placing a bloody, messy, foul stench in His nostrils. How dare we do this? These people will do this and gladly.
They worship demons through these so-called “good works.” Beloved, that’s breaking the very first commandment God gave to His people in Exodus 20:3 – “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Where false worship and service occur, it allows very real creatures known to us as demons to move in and usurp the place of God alone in favour of whatever our fantasy is. We all do it. Some of us have an idol in our living rooms called a television. That can lead you astray without you even realizing it. For some people, it is their raw and God-given intelligence. Such individuals place their own knowledge above godly counsel because they consider themselves the ultimate intellectual authority. You see it a great deal in left-wing politics these days, but I’ve seen it in other places as well. Do you want to know what your idol is? Honestly consider what besides the holy pursuit of Christ alone to which you give your time, because that is an answer. Some have sports. Some drink or use drugs. Some chase illicit relationships (a large target, I know). Whatever it is, all these things can be turned into the worship (substitute the term service, it makes understanding easier) of something before Almighty God.
In fact, John makes a few suggestions of the classic variety – false gods made with precious metals, stone, or wood. None of them are real. They cannot see, they cannot hear, and they cannot walk. They cannot respond to your service, whether that be reward or penalty. Only our very real God can do that. If said service is to yourself and what you want, then demons will deceive you and take you on a path that ultimately will lead nowhere good. These people know the truth and still do it willingly at this point. That has consequences. And read on, because their behaviours get worse.

21: and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.

Not only did they know better and not stop their insipid virtue signalling, they also continued in the most egregious sins named in Scripture. They did not repent of their murders [φόνων, phonōn]. That is the genitive masculine plural in the Greek. That means they did not repent of multiple killings of other people at its base meaning. Jesus told us in Matthew 5 that holding onto your anger for a person was tantamount to murder. That could mean they also hate other people, but murders are a very specific reference here if you ask me. This is a violation of the sixth commandment in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.”
Nor of their sorceries. That is the Greek φαρμάκων [pharmakōn, genitive neuter plural], meaning they did not repent of multiple drug uses in the literal sense, but if we were to understand this in the same metaphorical way as murders, pharmakia in general is also known as witchcraft in general. I do not believe that it is just the casting of spells that is at issue here, but any substance or activity that influences you to distraction. This could be alcohol, drugs, or even working out in the gym, all so that you are too busy or too tired or strung out to worship God. You are literally placing something at a higher priority than God with this and serving it and not Almighty God. This is a violation of the second commandment in Exodus 20: 4-6, which reads, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” I included the consequences of that covenant here for reference. The root cause here is idolatry, spoken of in the previous verse.
Nor their immorality [πορνείας, porneias, genitive feminine, singular]. The word is used in general of illicit sexual intercourse, according to Vine, but is also used figuratively of “the association of pagan idolatry with doctrines of, and professed adherence to, the Christian faith.” In other words, this can be called syncretism. I do not doubt that this is meant in both senses here. Sex outside of the only legal place, a monogamous marriage since Christ, or metaphorical idolatrous use of pagan ritual in Christian service or practice. An example in use today comes from the Catholic Church: the sacrifice of the mass. According to Catholic doctrine, this is Jesus being sacrificed again for sins, but according to the Scriptures in Hebrews 9:12, “and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” In fact, in medieval Irish Catholic texts, there is mention of the early Church in Ireland allegedly practicing the burial of sacrificial victims underneath churches to consecrate them. This may have been influenced by pagan Celtic practices of foundation sacrifice, where human victims were sacrificed to appease gods and ensure the prosperity and protection of the community. Although there is no firm link to the mass itself, it does make one wonder. Whatever the case, Catholic sources (The Catholic Encyclopedia, no less) agree that the early church “did not possess the sacrifice of the Mass, as Catholicism now understands it” until after the time of Pope Gregory the Great. Pope Gregory the Great is arguably the first actual Pontifex Maximus per se, a sort of proto-Pope circa AD 590, according to Andrew Miller in his Church History. One thing is certain – we know it was not the Apostle Peter, and I get that from a common-sense reading of Matthew 16. Many Pagan practices were adopted and ritualized for use in the church, starting here. I don’t remember where I read this, but idolatry is equated with spiritual adultery. James expresses the sentiment when he says in James 4:4, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
Nor their thefts. Greek κλεμμάτων. [genitive neuter plural form of klemma] It means “a thing stolen,” therefore “a theft,” according to Vine. This is a violation of the eighth commandment. You take things or people or service or whatever that does not belong to you without permission or the intention to return it or pay it back. Has anyone here ever done that? Yes, we all have. These individuals took themselves and their families and their very service of worship and did not give it back to God as we all should.

Beloved, these things, like all sins, have serious consequences. We have ALL done these things and worse as humans. Romans 6:23a tells us that the wages of sin is death. Wages. We earn death for all our sinful actions. This is what God says the payment will be for all those who sin. That’s the bad news, and you MUST understand it before you understand the GOOD news. Jesus died to pay for your sins and rose from the dead to prove it. If you will turn away from your sins, your virtue signalling, your idolatry, your use of altering influences on yourself, your immorality, your murders, your thefts, all of your sins in helplessness to do anything about them yourself, and instead turn to the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who paid the price for all your sinning and instead live for Him, you will be saved from the wrath of Him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb. He wants that for you, and so do I. Turn from your sin and to Christ. You will not regret it, no matter how nasty it may get after that.

And that’s what I saw in the chapter. Next time, we will look at Revelation 10:1-7. This forms another interlude between judgments. The seventh trumpet has not yet sounded, and it will not sound until Rev. 11:15. There is a lot of stuff that will happen, and probably in a very short amount of time between the two. But we’ll talk about that next time.