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And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

New Defender's Study Bible Notes

9:14 Euphrates. These four angels are also Satanic angels, for they have been “bound” because of past sin. They have not, like the previous group, been bound in the bottomless pit, but “in the great river Euphrates,” so apparently their particular sin was at a different time and place. Perhaps this particular horde of fallen angels, with their four captains, had been associated with the first great human rebellion after the Flood, when Nimrod led mankind to rebel against God at Babel, located on the Euphrates. As a result, God had scattered the people around the world, confusing their tongues (Genesis 11:9).

The invisible host of heaven, however, who had instigated this rebellion and whom Nimrod had sought to worship in his great temple tower built “unto heaven” (Genesis 11:4)—that is, with a shrine dedicated to the host of heaven, the angels and their starry realms—had not been scattered. Rather, they were confined to the Euphrates where they had established their base. This, of course, is not stated in Scripture, but seems a plausible explanation of why Babylon and its environs (including Baghdad, which has been more prominent than Babylon during the church age, as a center of the Islamic rebellion against Christ), seems ever since to have been the greatest enemy of God and His people.


9:15 a year. The demonic locusts had tortured men for only five months, but these demonic horses will ravage mankind for thirteen months, making a total of eighteen months. The previous judgments of the six seals and four trumpets will presumably take about two years, so that the events under this sixth trumpet will evidently terminate at about the midpoint of the seven-year tribulation.


9:15 third part of men. Evidently around a billion people will be slain by the Satanic army. Men could not die, though they desired to do so, under the torment of the previous scorpion-like stings; now they could hardly escape death. Already a billion people had been slain under the fourth seal judgment (Revelation 6:8), and now an equal number are killed by the Euphrates demons. All men will realize by this time that they are suffering because of their rebellion against their Creator and the One who came as their proffered Redeemer, but most will still (perhaps with a few exceptions) refuse to repent (Revelation 9:20).


9:20 repented not. The terrible army of centaur-like animals, half horse and half lion, with fire-breathing dragon mouths and serpent tails (Revelation 9:17), will eventually be slain, perhaps by the heavy artillery of modern armies. Men once again will smugly relax in their humanistic and pantheistic religions, confident in the invincibility of modern science and technology and now willingly and knowingly electing to follow Satan against God.


9:20 worship devils. The modern surge of New Age religions is, of course, merely a reversion to ancient pantheistic evolutionism, with all its trappings of occultism, spiritism, and polytheism. It will eventually become full-fledged demonism and finally Satan-worship (Revelation 13:4). Images depicting the “gods” of nature and energized by evil spirits will proliferate in the Western World just as they always have thrived in Asia and Africa, and with Lucifer recognized as the supreme pinnacle of cosmic, evolutionary consciousness.


9:21 murders. Violence will have spread over the earth ever since the rider on the red horse took peace from the earth (Revelation 6:4). Murder and robbery will become ever more common with the further breakdown of law and order.


9:21 sorceries. The word for “sorceries” actually means “druggings” (Greek pharmakeia, from which we get the word “pharmaceutical”). Ancient sorcerers and oracles commonly used mind-altering drugs to induce their visions and healings. The use of hallucinatory drugs has already become commonplace today, and will become almost universal in this future time, contributing significantly also to the rapid spread of murder, fornication and theft.


9:21 fornication. The Greek for “fornication” (porneia) actually covers all types of sexual sins—that is, every type of sexual sin outside the bonds of permanent, monogamous marriage. The modern explosion of adultery, divorce, promiscuity, homosexuality, lesbianism, incest, rape, and every imaginable perversion of God’s purpose in human sexuality, will become essentially universal in these terrible days to come.


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