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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
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. The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.
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 heads with which they inflict injury.
Revelation 9:13-19
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The people on the earth during the time of the Great Tribulation might have thought that they had experienced the worst after five months of torment and torture brought on by an onslaught of scorpion-tailed locusts, set loose when the fifth of seven judgment-instigating trumpets was sounded from Heaven. After all, the demonic, modified insects consistently and persistently stung everyone outside of the 144,000 who had been marked and kept safe by the Lord.
Unfortunately, there was far worse ahead for as we see in today’s passage, the sixth trumpet blast brought far more than mere non-fatal stings. Look at these words as we continue to study from Revelation, chapter 9:
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. The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.
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 heads with which they inflict injury. Vv.13-19
Here, in the second of the three final woes proclaimed by the eagle that soared above the earth after the impact of the fourth trumpet’s released judgment hit the earth, we see where there were widespread fatalities brought on by a large number of supernatural forces described as a “number of mounted troops” who were under the command of “four angels” who had been “bound at the great river Euphrates”. Further, the scriptures tell us they had been kept there for this specific purpose and this specific time, to be set loose during the Great Tribulation.
How many people will perish when this time comes in human history?
We read that they will equal “a third of mankind’, a staggering number when we do the math. Here’s what that would look like by today’s population standards.
- Our current world population is approximately 8 billion people.
- We know that the Great Tribulation follows the Rapture where Jesus will take away all those who placed their faith in Him. Today, there are around 2 billion Christians in the world so if the Rapture happened now, there would be six billion people left behind and we know that 144,000 of them will be protected by the aforementioned marking of the Lord.
- Given that 144,000 people are a relative small number when we’re looking at population in the billions, let’s just stick with 6 billion as the number of people impacted first by the scorpion-like locusts and then the marauding forces under the command of the four angels from the Euphrates. One third of that number, 2 billion people, will be killed after the sounding of the sixth trumpet, a mind-boggling massive loss.
The attacking forces who will take out that third of the world’s population won’t be hard to recognize. For we read that they will carry with them the following features:
1. The horses and riders will wear “breastplates” that will be “fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur”.
2. The “heads of the horses” will look like “the heads of lions”.
3. The horses will spew out toxic “plagues” of “fire, smoke and sulfur” from their mouths which will in turn kill a third of the world population.
4. The “power of the horses” will be found “in their mouths and in their tails”. We read that the tails in particular will be “like snakes having heads with which they inflict injury”.
It’s a totally frightening image, right?
This is why anyone who reads the Book of Revelation and is unsaved by Jesus would be an absolute fool to remain unsaved but as we’re going to see in tomorrow’s message, there will be people who will still continue to snub their noses at the Lord, even after experiencing the first two of the final three woes.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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