The Sixth Trumpet - The Second Woe

 Temple Baptist Church - 1-17-2021

Revelation 9:12-21

 

A.  We saw God’s reprieve in Chapter 7 where the 144,000 were sealed, the Gospel preached with an innumerable people saved and martyred.  Yet there was also an innumerable number of people who, when the pressure was off, continued to reject our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

I thank God for every soul saved.  Heaven is going to be a crowded, busy place.  These Tribulation saints paid a great price for their redemption but not as much of a price as Christ paid for it.

 

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision who will never come to know Christ because of the god of self and their rejection of our Lord.

 

B.  In Chapter 8, we saw the “locusts from hell” unleashed upon mankind with 5 months of unthinkable pain and suffering.  Men sought to die but death could not be found. 

 

I am glad that you and I who are saved will be rejoicing in heaven while the unsaved will suffer hell on earth and, after death, the lake of fire.

 

C.  Verse 12 says, “One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.”  There is an old saying, “The best is yet to come.”  Here, we find the judgment of God building, not fading away.  “The worst is yet to come.”  The Second Woe is about to be unleashed.  Mankind may reject and attempt to withstand Almighty God, but the outcome will not bode well for them.

 

Mankind cannot outlast God nor can they change His venue.  As we cannot know all that God has prepared for us, neither can mankind know all that He has prepared for them.

 

D.  Verse 13.  The sixth angel sounds, and a voice comes from the Golden Altar which is before God.  In both the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and the 2 great Temples (Solomon’s Temple and Zerubbabel’s Temple which was rebuilt in the days of Ezra), the Golden Altar of Incense, were the incense was burned and the prayers of the priests were offered, stood in front of the Veil that stood between God and man was hung.

 

I placed this replica of the Golden Altar of Incense here as a visual aid to understand what and where it stood in both the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and both Solomon and Zerubbabel’s Temple.

 

The scene here may not be exactly like the Temple in Heaven but the one on earth was made after the pattern of the heavenly.

 

E.  The voice heard was the prayers of God’s people for justice and reparation for the injustices of humanity upon them.

 

Revelation 6:9-10  And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:  (10)  And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

 

F.  Verse 14.  The voice commanded the sixth angel to loosen the four angels bound in the Euphrates.  These are evil, fallen angels as God’s angels are not bound; these are special angels that are bound in the great Euphrates River; these are angels bound by God to be loosed for special purpose: to judge those who have rejected the Great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

 

It is sobering to think that these angels and creatures are bound there in our day to be loosed in God’s time for God’s purposes.

 

G.  Verse 15.  Bound here for millenniums, the time of their loosing is at hand.  In Revelation 6:8, we saw the death of one fourth of mankind, 2 billion if it were today.  Now, men will once again be given their wish: death.  One third, billions, of mankind will die at the hands of these “horsemen from hell!”

 

There are app. 8 Billion people on earth today so one third will be 3.7 billion who will die here.  To give you an indication of just how many 3.7 billion is, it is 11.3 times the population of the United States (326.7 million).

 

H.  Verse 16.  The number of these “horsemen from hell” is an astonishing one: 200,000,000.  The greatest army ever assembled.  These “horsemen from hell” are not to be confused with the great army from the East found in Chapter 16.  The reason for this confusion is a figure given to the ability of China to bring forth an army of 200,000,00 a few years ago.  Some expositors reference that number in correlation with the number given in this verse.  Chapter references the army from the East that will cross the dried Euphrates River on their way the Battle of Armageddon at the end of the Tribulation Period.

 

J.  Verse 17-18.  The description of these “horsemen from hell” is a terrifying one.  Those setting upon these horses have breastplates of fire (not as it were fire but actual fire), jacinth (a gem of deep blue color-the color of royalty), and brimstone (“flashing sulfurous” material).  Sulfur burns with a blue flame in oxygen to produce a gas called sulfur dioxide. This gas smells like rotting eggs and is poisonous to breathe.  Their lionlike heads, a fearful sight, will issue forth the fire, smoke, and brimstone.  Imagine the fire breathing dragons of folklore. One third of mankind will be killed by fire, smoke, and the poisonous gas produced by the brimstone exposed to oxygen.

 

K.  Verses 19.  Their destructive power is found on both ends of these “horsemen from hell.”  The afore mentioned fire, smoke, and brimstone will proceed from their mouths while they will have tails like poisonous serpents that can strike and bite, producing a painful death.  The bite of a poisonous snake is a painful one and, unattended to, often brings about a painful death.

 

L.  Verse 20.  Though they see God’s judgment, the do not repent of the things that they worship.  Though seeing and fleeing from these horrendous beasts, those who do not die will not repent of the worship that they give to the “gods” and “god of this world.”  Devils, idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood.  As one preacher said, “There are idols that are metal and idols that are mental.”  Man’s “god” is what or whom he places before Almighty God.

 

Psalms 115:4-8  Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.  (5)  They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:  (6)  They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:  (7)  They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.  (8)  They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.

 

M.  Verse 21.  Though they see God’s judgment, they will not repent of the sins that they commit: murders, sorceries (phar-ma-kia, from which we get the word “pharmacy:” drugs), fornication (unlawful sexual relations), thefts.

 

N.  God will not have mercy upon their souls!