6th Trumpet
Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. Revelation 9:13-15
So lets assume after the previous judgements we’ve still got three billion people left on the planet. That’s potentially one billion people wiped out.
God said in Isaiah 13:12 (see below), “I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.” In the same passage, He says, “Everyone will turn to his own people, and everyone will flee to his own land.” People will be in a panic trying to escape.
We don’t know where the four Angels are bound at the great river Euphrates but it’s a major spiritual principality and power on earth. The Euphrates is approximately 3,000 kilometres or 1,900 miles long, and it’s entirely Muslim. It starts in Turkey, then goes through Syria and Iraq before emptying into the Persian Gulf. The towns and cities it flows through are the biggest trouble spots in the world today.
In Turkey the river is dammed in several places. Beneath the lakes of these dams are ancient towns such as Samsat which was flooded by the Ataturk Dam, the third largest dam in the world.
Samsat is an interesting site near Nemrut Dagi or Mount Nemrut. Built by Antiochus 1 it is an impressive religious sanctuary on a mountain. Believing he should be numbered with the gods, Antiochus is buried up there.
The Euphrates flowed through Babylon in the centre of Iraq. Its remains are about 85 kilometres or 53 miles south of Baghdad. The river’s course has changed so much that most of the western part of Babylon is now submerged.
Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone.
By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed—by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they do harm. Revelation 9:16-19
At the blowing of the sixth trumpet a huge army will be mobilised and led by the four angels just released from the Euphrates.
This will follow hard on the heels of the locust army from the fifth trumpet.
The soldiers will scale walls without breaking formation. Mountains will be blackened with them. Leaping on the city, running on the walls, climbing into houses and entering through windows, people will scream in anguish at the sight of them.
Nothing will escape the invading hordes as they burst through defenders whose weapons will not stop them.
They run like mighty men they climb the wall like men of war; Every one marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another; Every one marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall; They climb into the houses, they enter at the windows like a thief. Joel 2:7-9
In the Greek-Hebrew lexicon the word for ‘mighty men’ is Gibbowr, the same description used for Nimrod.
The troops are great and powerful, the likes of which have never been seen before nor ever will be again. Their mounts are not horses; they have heads like lions and tails like snakes. They will breathe fire like dragons and their tails will bite.
The riders are not from China. Because the troops number 200 million people think they must be Chinese. They will be chimeras perhaps, but not Chinese. All we know is the riders will wear breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue and sulphur yellow.
The land, kibbutzim, villages and farms will be scenes of desolation. There won’t be any food or pasture left after the locust demon horde has stripped the land bare. Famine will stalk the land, storehouses will be bare, barns broken down and grain crops withered. And this is described in the book of Joel.
Fire will devour before them and flames will burn after them, turning the land into a desolate wilderness. Joel mentions the army in the same chapter as the Day of the Lord, which he prophesied would be a day of thick darkness.
Whose army is this? God called it ‘his army’ in Ezekiel 38, ‘my great army’ in Joel 2:25, and in Isaiah 7:20 he describes the king of Assyria as ‘a razor that is hired.’ There are many instances in the Old Testament where God has used heathen kings to get His people to repent and turn back to him. He has repeatedly warned Israel through the prophets, but this is the most severe judgement yet.
Even though the Lord released this army, he promised he would relent if the Israelites returned to him with all their hearts, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. When this army has done its work it will be destroyed at Armageddon.
The Lord declared, ‘But I will remove far from you the northern army, and will drive him away into a barren and desolate land, with his face toward the eastern sea and his back toward the western sea; His stench will come up, and his foul odour will rise, because he has done monstrous things.’ Joel 2:20
In the midst of this tumult, there is salvation. In Joel 2:32 the Lord promises, “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
The Great Tribulation will be a time of open spiritual warfare. We know a third of mankind will be killed by the horsemen. What will happen to the two-thirds who survive?
But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. Revelation 9:20-21
The word sorceries is translated as ‘pharmakos.’ They may not be able to repent because they’re enslaved by drugs or pharmakeia. Will the Mark of the Beast destroy their free will?
Notes
Isaiah 13
Verses 2-5; As well as commanding His sanctified ones, the LORD will also call mighty ones for his anger – those who rejoice in his exaltation;
“Lift up a banner on the high mountain, Raise your voice to them;
Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.
I have commanded My sanctified ones;
I have also called My mighty ones for My anger—
Those who rejoice in My exaltation.”
The noise of a multitude in the mountains, Like that of many people!
A tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together!
The Lord of hosts musters the army for battle.
They come from a far country, From the end of heaven—
The Lord and His weapons of indignation,
To destroy the whole land.”
Verse 9
This will happen in the Day of the Lord,
Behold, the day of the Lord comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger,
To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it.
For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light;
The sun will be darkened in its going forth, And the moon will not cause its light to shine.
Verses 13
Here we see the fourth trumpet judgement of Revelation 8; Therefore I will shake the heavens, And the earth will move out of her place, In the wrath of the Lord of hosts, And in the day of His fierce anger.
Verse 17
The army will come from an area that historically belonged to the Medes. Israel has been invaded by an army from this empire thousands of years ago but the prophecy also has a future fulfilment; “Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them,”
Verses 19-20
Babylon, which has never been destroyed, will be destroyed;
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, The beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited, Nor will it be settled from generation to generation; Nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, Nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there.
The Kingdom 