END OF TIME PROPHECIES 121

The sounding of the sixth trumpet    the removal of Divine restraint.

"And 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 which had the trumpet, loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. and the four angels were loosed, which were bound for an hour and a day and a month and a year, for to slay the third part of men".   Revelation 9v13-15.

All restraint is now removed. A voice is heard "from the four horns of the altar"; the same altar associated with the prayers of the saints in chapter 8, and with prayer and worship throughout the ages, the symbol now focuses on the horns of the altar, that of the power of the throne, and now the judgment will fall. Already one fourth of men have been destroyed(chapter 6v8), now one third of the remainder will be slain. Human beings living in rebellion have no rights on God's earth. Therefore taking these and other casualties together, more than half of the world's population is wiped out.

The details given here are staggering;

• Four angels bound. Only fallen angels are bound. God controls all, He has bound them with a specific task in mind. He uses ungodly men, He uses fallen angels, He even uses Satan.
• Bound in the Great river Euphrates. This river was significant in the days of Eden(Genesis 2v14), it is important at the end. I think the strategic position of Euphrates has a bearing, being the historical natural division between east and west, and also the northern border of Israel from it's usually hostile neighbours. This river has played a huge part in world history, none more so than now. These angel's are spirits so they could be anywhere in the river, but they are not free.
• They were prepared.   We don't know when or how but they have been kept for this time. There is something awesome about this. God is way ahead of all things. The perfect participle is used signifying a completed action in the past with present consequences. This was decreed a long time ago, and the time has come.
• The Divine clock ticking.  "prepared for the hour, and the day, and the month and the year". God's timing is precise, it is not only the events which are under His control, but the timing of them. We may deduce from this that all events in the scope of His sovereign will are subject to similar precision of timing. There are numerous examples in scripture of the precision of God's timing of things;  "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law...." Galatians 4v4; "For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly" Romans 5v6. In Revelation 10v6 the phrase occurs "there should be time no more", the meaning is more "no more delay". God's counsels are executed with perfect timing. In Acts 17v26 Paul said on Mars hill, Athens, that even our individual lives on this earth have been pre-determined "and hath determined the times before appointed". Readers should familiarize themselves with the content of this sermon in Acts 17v22-31. The common phrase "time and tide wait for no man" takes on mega- proportions, when understood against the backdrop of Divine revelation. The precision of this is made even more important by the fact that there is only one definite article qualifying all four time periods mentioned; so it is to be read "prepared for the hour of day, month and year.....".
• The purpose of their long- standing preparation  "for to slay the third part of men". God has decreed that in a short space of time one third of the earth's population will lose their right to continue in rebellion on God's earth. Life on earth is granted by permission of Almighty God, and that permission for billions of people will suddenly end. The current population of earth is approximately 7 billion; this means the removal of life from almost 2,000,000,000 people. Nothing on this scale has ever been seen, not even in the ravages of two world wars. No comment of mine on this could assuage the solemnity of this.