The Sixth Trumpet – Revelation 9:12-21

Revelation 9:12: “One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.”

In its noun form “woe” is a state of being, namely, grieving a loss. As an Interjection, “woe” is an exclamation of grief. In Revelation 9:12, “woe” is used as a warning that great losses are coming unless people repent of sin and begin glorifying God. God created us to bring Him glory!

According to the King James Bible Dictionary, the exact word “woe” is used 106 times in the King James Version, while related forms like “woeful” and “woes” appear once each.

In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounces seven “woes” against the scribes and the Pharisees.

In Matthew 23:13, woe for shutting people out of the Kingdom of Heaven.
In Matthew 23:14, woe for exploiting widows while making long prayers to hide their greed.
In Matthew 23:15, woe for making their followers fit for hell.
In Matthew 23:16–22, woe for making legalistic rules that supposedly please God but don’t.
In Matthew 23:23–24, woe for obsessing over stats but neglecting justice, mercy, and faith.
In Matthew 23:25–26, woe for posing as holy, but being greedy and self-indulgent.
In Matthew 23:27–33, woe for dressing themselves as holy, yet being murderers of prophets.

In Proverbs 15:11, it is written, “Hell and destruction are before the Lord, so how much more the hearts of the sons of men.”

Do you really want trumpets six and seven to sound after what happened during the previous five trumpet blasts?

In Joshua 6:1-25, the people of Jericho did not repent after six days of trumpet sounds. They should have! All of them except Rahab the harlot gambled that the God who destroyed Egypt would not destroy them. They were wrong. On the seventh day, trumpets sounded again and all of the people perished except for Rahab and those in her household.

In Joshua 2:18, Rahab tied a scarlet cord in the window of her home signifying that she believed Israel’s God was God. In Hebrews 11:31, Rahab is mentioned alongside such heroes of the faith as Noah, Abraham, and Moses. In Matthew 1:5, her name appears in the genealogy of Jesus.

Revelation 9:13: “Then the sixth angel sounded. And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God...”

In Exodus 30:1, this golden altar with the four horns is the altar of incense which represents the prayers of God’s people ascending before Him.

In Revelation 6:9, John saw the souls of the martyrs praying at this altar for God to take vengeance on those who murdered them. Like Abel in Genesis 4:10, their blood cries out to God for vengeance.

In Revelation 8:3-5, an angel takes a censer filled with prayers and incense from this altar and casts it to earth. When he does, thunderings, lightnings and an earthquake break out on earth.

Revelation 9:14: “Saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’”

In Joshua 1:3-5, the Lord promised to Israel, “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you... the River Euphrates... to the Great Sea [the Mediterranean]... No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.”

In Genesis 2:14, the Euphrates River is mentioned as the fourth river breaking off from the river that flowed out of the Garden of Eden.

In Genesis 10:8-10, Nimrod built Babel near to the Euphrates River. Babel and Babylon are fundamentally the same geographical location and city, with “Babel” being the original Hebrew name and “Babylon” being the later Greek form. בָּבֶל is the Hebrew rendering of the Akkadian phrase Bābilim, meaning “Gate of the God.”

The physical ruins of ancient Babylon are located along the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq about 50 miles south of Baghdad.

In Genesis 11:1-9, rather than spreading out to fill the earth as God had commanded them to do, people wanted to gather in Babylon, build a city and make a name for themselves. God had to stop them. Babylon is a code word for people who try to rule themselves apart from God.

In Genesis 14:1-9, the first international battle took place between a coalition of four eastern Mesopotamian kings and an alliance of five local kings from the Jordan plain. Mesopotamia is the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

In Revelation 9:14, the sixth angel says to release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. Why were they bound? They are evil. God restrained them. 2 Thessalonians indicates that God restrains lawlessness. God can also release lawlessness.

Revelation 9:15: “So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, day, month, and year, were released to kill a third of mankind.”

In Zechariah 6:1-6, four horsemen are pulling war chariots. The Lord explained to Zechariah that these four are spirits of heaven. They go out from the Lord to all the earth. In Revelation 6:2-8, the riders on four colored horses bring curses based on the Law of Moses against lawbreakers.

Cumulatively, they bring forth sword (war), famine, pestilence and death. These four judgments are like four prescriptions designed to humble people and to bring them to repentance. The words, “sword, famine and pestilence” appear together in 26 different Bible verses. Death usually follows war, hunger and disease. Death is the fourth horseman.

In Revelation 18:8, God says of Babylon, “Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning, and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.” In due season, God brings down those who exalt themselves against Him.

Revelation 9:16-19: “Now the number of the army of the horsemen was 200 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, 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.”

In Ezekiel 38, God foretold of “Gog,” the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal advancing with a great coalition of forces from Persia (Iran), Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer and Togarmah against Israel. Biblical scholars and historians generally link Rosh, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Togarmah to ancient regions in modern-day Russia, Turkey, and Eurasia.

In Ezekiel 38:9, God speaks to Gog, saying, “You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up, advancing like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the land.”

In Ezekiel 38, God promises to shake the earth with His presence, and turn the swords of these soldiers against each other. He will rain down great hailstones, fire and brimstone on them. As a result many nations will know that God is the Lord of heaven and earth.

A third of mankind was killed as a result of this war. In Revelation 14:20, God speaks of blood as high as horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs which is 200 miles. Isaiah 34:2-3 speaks of the Lord’s indignation against all nations. His fury against their armies to destroy them. “Their stench shall rise from their corpses.”

A third of mankind means that one out of every three people on earth will be dead. Imagine the logistical nightmare for the survivors to clean up after such a mess. In Ezekiel 39 and Revelation 19, God calls for birds and scavenging beasts to consume the corpses of defeated armies.

Imagine the level of bereavement on the earth.

When God removes restraints, battles break out. A 200 million soldier army has never been assembled before. The total size of all armies at the height of WWII was 70 million.

This army was recruited by Satan to attack God’s people in Israel. They have fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow breastplates. These colors represent fire in its various forms depending on how hot it is. These soldiers are full of fiery hatred of God and Israel. The heads of their horses are fierce like the heads of lions. The horses also have the spirit of murder in them. Out of their mouths comes fire, smoke, and brimstone alluding to the evil spirits within them.

Revelation 9:20-21: “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.”

As in Genesis 6:5, the “wickedness of man is great in the earth. Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” They harden their hearts against God and refuse to repent.

When Jesus was brought to trial before the people of Jerusalem, they chose to acquit the insurrectionist Barabbas rather than Jesus. In the last days, many people, will run with the devil rather than walk with Jesus.

In Revelation 9:21, sorceries is mentioned. The Greek word for sorcery is “pharmakos” from which we get the word “pharmacy.” Some drugs are medicines that are helpful. Others are not! Some drugs cause harm to and through people.

In Revelation 9:21, sexual immorality is mentioned. The Greek word for sexual immorality is “porneias” from which the word “pornography” is derived. Pornography is the study of sexual immorality. The enemy of our soul knows what arouses are sinful nature. He wants to lead us astray from worshipping and serving God just as he did with Adam and Eve.

Consider this, Adam and Eve were in a paradise, and still opted for something other than God. Jesus was in a wilderness. He had not ate for forty days but would not turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger when the devil tempted Him. In 1 John 5:5, the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God overcomes the world. In 1 Thessalonians 1:10, Jesus delivers us from wrath.

In Proverbs 10:17, the Lord says, “He who keeps instruction is in the way of life, but he who refuses correction goes astray.”

In Proverbs 10:25, the Lord says, “When the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more, but the righteous has an everlasting foundation.”

Let us pray for God to have mercy on the human race. We are for the most part deceived and distant from God. May the Lord in His lovingkindness graciously grant us repentance from sin and faith in His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.