Sixth Trumpet: The Angels from the Euphrates

Revelation 9:13 - 20

13 Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 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. 16 Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. 17 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. 18 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. 19 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.

20 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. 21 And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

John witnesses the sixth angel sounding its trumpet, and when he hears that he also hears a voice coming from the area of the golden altar, which during the days of the tabernacle was placed in the area just in front of the veil, this indicates this voice was coming from the presence of God, this voice was telling the angel to release four other angels.

These four angels were stationed on the river Euphrates. It is significant because Babylon was located on the Euphrates.

Babylon was the first of four world empires and the word came to mean confusion and chaos and was finally applied to the Roman Catholic Empire which we are now studying.

What these four angels are to do, is not stated, but it continues with the theme of bringing God's wrath on the members of the Catholic world empire.

2 Thessalonians 2, tells us God did not force anyone to belong to that organization but allowed them to continue what they desired to believe and allowed them to continue believing the deceptions put before them. God never forces anyone to sin and then punishes them for that sin.

God brought these judgments upon the followers of that organization by the practices of the organization itself, the four angels represent different aspects and departments of the Roman Catholic church-state which were bringing the suffering upon its own people.

This time mentioned is not a literal date, but is an actual date which will happen that this judgment will be applied to the followers of the Roman Catholic church-state

There will be a great number of those who will apply the the torment to the followers of the Roman-Catholic church. John did not actually observe the number, but he “heard” it, meaning he was told the number would a large amount.

The descriptions of these horses show that the ferocious nature of those who would be applying the torture to the members of the church-state. Again we see a great number of the ones who served under the rule of the Roman-Catholic church-state died, but yet the organization continued to function.

Yet the survivors did not repent or quit following the deceitful doctrines of this satanic organization. They continued to worship dead saints, as they still do today, they worship statues and idols of religious icons, even though things were difficult and they wished to die because of the stress caused by the policies and practices of the Roman-Catholic Church-state.

And this organization continued to do the crimes, murder, sorceries, sexual immoralities, and theft. This organization has shown it will do anything to further its own corrupt interests