One woe down, two woes to go. “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. Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.” (Revelation 9:13-16) The four angels? John used the very same Greek word that’s used throughout the New Testament for the spiritual servants of Yahweh, aggelos. It simply means “messenger.” But Yahweh’s “angels” are never spoken of as having to be “bound.” In Revelation 12:9, when Satan’s followers were thrown out of heaven with him, they are referred to there as angels. I believe, therefore, that these too are fallen angels, a.k.a. demons, who have been restrained in an unusual place (i.e., not in the abyss with everybody else nasty enough to need locking up) in anticipation of their unique role.

Strong’s suggests that aggelos is probably derived from ago, meaning “to lead.” And that’s exactly what we see these four doing. They lead an army of 200,000,000 soldiers on a rampage that ultimately kills “a third of mankind.” This is the second and final time in Revelation when the death of a specific percentage of the earth’s population is prophesied. The first time was under the fourth seal judgment, when one quarter of mankind was slated for destruction by the warfare, famine, and disease directly associated with World War III. Starting from a baseline of a nice round six billion (though earth’s population already exceeds that today), that means the fourth seal judgment will kill off 1,500,000,000 people. The sixth trumpet will see the death of one third of the remaining 4.5 billion—another billion and a half souls. These two “events” will kill off half the world’s population between them—over three billion people! (Actually, I expect the earth’s population to reach an even seven billion as the Tribulation begins (SF8)—it’s a more Biblically poetic number, even though it never was specifically predicted. Seven billion souls: the earth is full! But the math is simpler with six.)

Does this mean that the remaining three billion or so will survive until the end of the Tribulation? Alas, no, it doesn’t. The cumulative fifty percent death toll is due to two well-defined causes, World War III and the horde of the sixth trumpet, which I’d characterize as World War IV. Easily another couple of billion could die from other causes: executions for refusing to take the Mark of the Beast; smaller regional (or neighborhood) wars fought over dwindling food and water supplies; the general anarchy and violent crime that inevitably follows the collapse of established human government (see Romans 13:1-7); punishments meted out by the central authority for sheltering believing Jews and Tribulation Christians; infections and complications from the “foul and loathsome sores” that afflict the recipients of the Mark of the Beast; thirst due to a worldwide drought and an accompanying shortage of drinkable water; disease left untreated because of the breakdown of medical services or the increased virulence of the germs that cause it; “men’s hearts failing them for fear” (Luke 21:26)…you get the idea. There will be no shortage of ways to die that aren’t included in the fourth seal or the sixth trumpet judgments.

Another observation: the voice that sent the sixth trumpet’s angel on his way came from the “four horns of the golden altar which is before God.” In other words, the blood of Yahshua (if I’m reading this right) is demanding that justice be served to those who have refused to avail themselves of its atoning power. By doing so, these people are saying in effect, Your sacrifice was pointless—we have no need of forgiveness or salvation. Go away and leave us alone—forever. Okay, if that’s what you really want. It’s your choice.

And what’s that about preparing the demons for “the hour and day and month and year?” Is John saying merely that they are being readied for this precise moment (which is pretty obvious), or is he giving us the timeline? If the latter is intended, my guess would be that the clock starts ticking on day 1,230—at the abomination of desolation. An hour, day, month, and year later would put you at day 1,621—a plausible conjecture at the very least for the timing of this part of the second “woe.” Of course, it doesn’t matter, on this side of the rapture anyway, whether my speculations about the timing of this or anything else are particularly accurate. What matters is that God’s Word is true—these things will happen, precisely on Yahweh’s schedule. On the other hand, we’re given these specific time markers and odd phrases like “a time and times and half a time” and “the hour and day and month and year” for a reason. It is incumbent upon us to at least try to figure things out. The details could be a matter of life and death to those trying to make it through these times, and one gets the feeling that the Tribulation saints aren’t going to have the time and resources needed to study this through like we do.

John isn’t done. “And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow….” The description of the breastplates is a clue. If you look at this in the old King James, they sound like weapons (“fire,” “jacinth,” and “brimstone”). But I believe the NKJV renders them correctly as colors. None of the words in the Greek are the usual nouns for the things represented, but are all adjectives; in the case of “hyacinth blue,” it definitely describes a color. Other clues we need to factor in are that (1) these people are probably not primary participants in World War III (i.e., Russia, dar al-Islam, Europe, or America)—since they can still field an army of two hundred million men; and (2) they are said to be from the “east” in Revelation 16:12—the sixth bowl judgment. Remember, in scripture, directions are given in reference to Israel, so our modern conception of East and West, separated by the Pacific Ocean, is still in line with ancient Biblical terminology. So whose national colors are red, yellow, and blue? The only Eastern nations populous enough to be remotely in the running are India, Indonesia, Australia, China, and Japan. Of those, only China fits the color profile: its own flag is red and yellow, and its northern vassal, Mongolia, supplies the blue component. Japan, Australia, and Indonesia include white—so I’d say they’re ruled out. For what it’s worth, Vietnam also fits China’s color profile.

While the color thing proves nothing, it’s strong circumstantial evidence that China is the home of this huge Eastern army. It’s noteworthy that as far back as 1965, China boasted of its ability to field a military force two hundred million strong. And they haven’t gotten any less numerous in the intervening years, despite their brutal attempts at “family planning.” In fact, population growth rates may prove to be the key to this conflict. Since 1950, the total fertility rate in China has dropped from 6 births per woman to 2.4. India’s, by comparison, has only been reduced from 6 to 4. These two nations are thus still expected to lead the world’s population growth in the early twenty-first century (though the rates of increase are considerably higher in many smaller developing nations). At these rates, India’s population will someday pass China’s—potentially making them a perceived threat. These statistics are a time bomb for China. The average age of their population is rising. It will eventually reach the point where China will fear becoming too old to provide for or defend itself, at which point they could, for the first time in their long history, decide to strike out imperialistically beyond their own borders. Of course, the reason for China’s belligerence could simply be a good old fashioned genocidal land grab designed to cope with ever-decreasing harvests—a direct result of the diminished sunlight since World War III.

As we have seen before, John had no vocabulary with which to deal with twenty-first century weaponry, so he was shown his vision with images he could understand and communicate. “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 9:17-19) This passage does not require millions of horses with birth defects. It’s symbolic (I hope) of an army that’s, swift, fierce, and deadly. They’re well armed, using three specific classes of weapons, symbolized by fire, smoke, and brimstone. If I had to guess, I’d say that represents nuclear, conventional, and biochemical warfare, things the Chinese have spent decades developing, but have never used in open warfare.

And the bit with the tails like serpents, with heads on them? That’s a tough one. Perhaps the key is in the word “serpent.” The Greek ophis means snake, but as in English, the word can be used in the sense of a sly, cunning, malicious person. Indeed, this same word is used of Satan himself in Revelation 12:9 and elsewhere. So the passage seems to mean that while the Chinese hordes are fighting a “public” war in one theater with “fire, smoke, and brimstone,” they are also fighting a private, sneaky war in the rear—maybe on a different front or fought in a different way (e.g. undermining rival governments from within with political intrigues).

At present, China is a sleeping giant if ever there was one. But all it will take to wake them up is four demons from out of town. Once awake, the purpose of their aggression will be to severely depopulate their neighbors, providing room for China’s population to expand—Lebensraum, as the Nazis would have called it. If China has any kind of national memory, they will be especially brutal toward Japan—who did precisely the same thing to them a century before. India, Australia, and Southeast Asia—the most populous regions to survive World War III—will also be hit hard. Taiwan is toast. Korea is unified—and promptly swallowed whole. The Philippines are overrun, and this time there’s no Macarthur melodramatically promising to return and save the day. Malaysia, Indonesia, and the rest of Southern Asia are goners. The Far-Eastern Muslim populations, those that weren’t obliterated as the Middle East perished under the folly of Gog, are wiped out. And as in the oh-so-recent world war in the west, over 1.5 billion lives—one third of the earth’s remaining population—will be lost.

“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) Genocidal wars will seem so common by this time that the survivors in the West will greet the news of World War IV with yawns and shrugs. Gee, that’s too bad, but what does it have to do with me? I’ve got problems of my own to deal with. One gets the feeling from these verses that the general populace doesn’t make the connection between the disasters they’re experiencing and the displeasure of God. If the bombs aren’t falling in their own backyard, then life is good, relatively speaking. In a world without moral absolutes, World War II-style holy indignation against the evil aggressors will be a meaningless concept. But even if the West wanted to get involved (which they won’t) there’s not enough infrastructure left to mount any kind of sustained military response.

So for everybody east of the Euphrates who wasn’t killed in the War of Magog, a new peril has arisen. John saw them, heard their number, and saw their battle flags. The prophet Joel saw them as well: “A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been; nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations….” The next time an army even remotely this large marches, a thousand years will have passed—but that’s a story for another chapter. (The Battle of Armageddon, which we’ll discuss in due time, is in reality merely the final engagement of World War IV.) “A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns; the land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing shall escape them….” If an army two hundred million strong wants what you’ve got, they’re going to take it, and there’s not a lot you can do to stop them. Part of the strategy seems to be to consume or destroy whatever crops and infrastructure they find (like Sherman’s March to the Sea, only on steroids), leaving no way for their hapless victims to fight back or even survive. They don’t want to subjugate people (like the Muslims did): they simply want to kill them.

“Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; and like swift steeds, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array….” Joel, like John, sees them as a mighty, state-of-the-art military machine. Leaping over mountaintops sounds like close air support to me; the noise he describes is jet aircraft engines. “Before them the people writhe in pain; all faces are drained of color….” No kidding, Joel. Anybody in their path who has a clue of what’s about to happen to them will be scared spitless. “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….” This is the picture of a modern well-trained, well-equipped army, in superb physical condition, drilled, disciplined, and skilled in the tactics of both open field and urban warfare—completely unlike the Muslim hordes of the Battle of Magog. As usual with huge armies, their very presence brings with it environmental disaster: “The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness….”

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this mighty army is that although they are led by demonic forces, and regardless of the fact that they have no relationship at all with Yahweh, they are still performing His will, in His time, for His purposes. They just don’t know it. “Yahweh gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of Yahweh is great and very terrible. Who can endure it?” (Joel 2:2-11) Joel wrote primarily to warn ninth century B.C. Judah that there was a Babylonian horde in their future if they didn’t repent. Nebuchadnezzar’s army would function in exactly the same way—as the unwitting hand of God’s wrath—albeit on a much smaller scale than this future Far Eastern military machine. So I would be remiss if I didn’t include the admonition that accompanied the prophecy: “‘Now, therefore,’ says Yahweh, ‘Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.’ So rend your heart, and not your garments. Return to Yahweh your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.” (Joel 2:12-13) The call for repentance was not for Judah alone, but for every one of us, in every age.

There is one more interesting and important question. What’s the Antichrist’s position on the Eastern holocaust? Two scenarios are possible. He could see China’s move as a threat to his own power, perceiving that once their position is unassailable in the Far East, the Chinese will turn their acquisitive attentions toward him. Scripture, however, seems to support the opposite view: China’s war of expansion is being done with the Antichrist’s blessing, supervision, and support. Like 1930s Italy under Mussolini (behaving like a bully in its own backyard while in reality being little more than the puppet of the far more powerful Third Reich) China will defer to the Antichrist in matters of their own regional interests. Remember: “Authority was given [to the Antichrist] over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on the earth will worship him.” (Revelation 13:7-8) Nobody challenges the big dog (well, nobody but Israel). We’ll see this destructive horde again—at the very end of the Tribulation. He whistles. They come. Everybody dies. Film at eleven.

Isn’t the Antichrist concerned that the world under his control is dying off faster than butterflies in a blizzard? Apparently not. He works directly under the authority of the dragon, Satan (Revelation 13:2), and his agenda is to kill as many humans as he can before they turn in repentance to Yahweh—dooming the object of God’s love to an eternity of separation from Him. That’s the devil’s idea of “winning.”