Satan’s Army vs God’s Army.
“Then the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were turned loose to kill one-third of all the people on earth. I heard the size of their army, which was 200 million mounted troops. And in my vision, I saw the horses and the riders sitting on them. The riders wore armor that was fiery red and dark blue and yellow. The horses had heads like lions, and fire and smoke and burning sulfur billowed from their mouths. One-third of all the people on earth were killed by these three plagues—by the fire and smoke and burning sulfur that came from the mouths of the horses. Their power was in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails had heads like snakes, with the power to injure people.” – Revelation 9:15-19
As I have said previously, in all the commentaries I have read over five decades of study in this book, I have never read anything convincing concerning the exegesis of this passage. I think it is imperative to not concentrate on the details but get the overall picture of what this text is telling us. The trumpets have described for us how sin (inspired by its originator) has gradually unwound creation, leaving this world in an unsafe state, where the original perfect balance no longer applies. Our text is a description of the destroyers unrelenting and escalating character of destruction. As we also noted yesterday during the time of this trumpet, historians note that the figure of 1/3rd would correlate to the amount of those killed in Europe from the plague. The plagues of this era can be directly attributed to the church locking away the Old Testament health and sanitation laws in a language that only priests were trained to read.(Latin)
In the larger picture of the sixth trumpet, these four angels call up an “army from the bottomless pit,” dressed in red, blue, and sulphurous yellow. As a description of their character these angels and their army have one purpose, and one purpose only, to kill human beings in massive numbers. You could say that these four angels are the ultimate “weapons of mass destruction.” The powerful weapons they direct, emanating from the mouths and tails of 200,000,000 cavalry horses, kill a full third of the human race. Lurking in the background of all this destruction is the “angel of the abyss” (Rev 9:11).
The urge to kill and destroy ultimately arises from the proud and vengeful heart of satan himself. Don’t get lost in the numbers or the descriptions – we are talking about character, as will be the same with God’s people.
There is a contrast here between the numbering of satan’s army and God’s army previously mentioned in chapter 7. One can’t help but think of the story of Gideon in Judges 7 – the battle is the Lord’s. The book of Revelation contains many parallels between the unsaved and the people of God. The unsaved call for the rocks and mountains to fall on them (Rev 6:15-17), the great multitude stands safely before the throne (Rev 7:9). 200,000,000 surge forth in the sixth trumpet. They are in contrast to the 144,000 (Rev 7:1-4) and the two witnesses (Rev 11:3-6). The unsaved are represented by a beast from the sea (Revelation 13), and the righteous by a remnant who are faithful to Jesus. (Revelation 12:17).
It is as if there were no sharp distinctions between good and evil in the visions of Revelation 9, even though such distinctions are made in the seven letters. The reason for the ambiguity in the visions here is the role of deception and counterfeit that we will see presented in the central part of the book. The line between truth and error will be hard to distinguish toward the End. As we approach the end, Satan will do all he can to deceive us (As Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:24).
Just because something is religious doesn’t mean it is right or honours God. The Word of God is our best safeguard against satan’s deceptive advice.
Remember that this prophecy contains very little literalness. Pictured in symbols and similes (NB the word ‘like’ occurs 13 times in this passage) we see presented the ups and downs that will accompany the gospel presentation. Israel rejected the Messiah because they had a literal interpretation of Prophecy. Revelation is a mosaic of the Old Testament apocalyptic symbols that aim for overall effect rather than detail. The 5th trumpet had tormented with false ideas. The 6th trumpet kills. First comes the teachings of devils then the devils themselves. Compare this with Daniel 10 where Daniel is shown that earthly events were merely the outcome of the struggle between supernatural powers.
This description indicates that the plagues of the 6th trumpet are related in some way to those of the 5th. The power to harm in the 5th trumpet resided in the tail, in this trumpet the power to harm is in both the mouth and the tail. So, there is an escalation of terror here. The good news is that the plagues of the trumpets are focused on the unsaved (Rev 9:4, 20-21),(C.f. the plagues of Egypt prior to the Exodus, which did the same.)
God is well able to protect His own we need not fear the fiery plague; our lives are in God’s hands.
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We are so blessed that Jesus loves us and that he always looks after his own God bless you and your family