Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #26 of Revelation, chapter 9, and we are going to be reading Revelation 9:12-14:

One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter. 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.

I will stop reading there.  We have been reading of Judgment Day, so far in Revelation, chapter 9, and, if you remember, back at the end of chapter 8 in the last verse, it said in Revelation 8:13:

And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!

We saw how God likens these last three trumpets to “three woes.”  Just as the first four trumpets dealt with the judgment on the churches, the last three (the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets and the “three woes”) deals with God’s judgment on “the inhabiters of the earth,” just as it says here. 

We saw this very same language in Jeremiah, chapter 25, a chapter in which the Lord describes the cup of His wrath that was first given to the people called by His name.  Then it says in Jeremiah 25:28-29:

And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink. For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the JEHVOAH of hosts.

Notice the similar language and the similar context.  Jeremiah 25 first details the judgment upon “Jerusalem,” which would point to judgment beginning at the house of God.  Then God asks the question: “Should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished,” and then He calls “for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth.”  So God basically lays out the same pattern in Revelation, chapters 8 and 9; chapter 8 discusses the judgment that first came on the churches, which is typified by the “third part.”  Then the transition is made: “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth!”  It is now time to judge the world and the fifth trumpet was the “first woe,” and now we are reading in Revelation 9:12:

One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

Just as the first four trumpets were sounding simultaneously and describing the same thing, likewise, the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets are describing Judgment Day.  Now the fifth trumpet (the “first woe”) focused particularly upon the torment that would be brought upon the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.  We will read with the sixth trumpet (the “second woe”) a slightly different perspective regarding the object of God’s wrath, but it is describing the same thing: Judgment Day, which began on May 21, 2011.

This “second woe,” which is beginning here in Revelation 9:12, will continue into Revelation 11, until we get to Revelation 11:14, where it says, “The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.”  So that means that the rest of Revelation, chapter 9, and all of Revelation, chapter 10, and most of Revelation, chapter 11, will be related to the “second woe,” in one way or another. 

Let us continue into Revelation 9:13:

And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 

Again, the “sixth angel” is synonymous with the “second woe.”  Each “woe” identifies with one of the last three trumpets to sound.  So the “first trumpet” identifies with the “fifth angel” and the second woe identifies with the “sixth angel” and the “sixth angel” sounds and the “second woe” begins and there was “a voice from the four horns of the golden altar.”  We discussed this earlier in the Book of Revelation; God had two altars that we read of in the Old Testament.  One was the brazen altar and one was the golden altar.  Here, it is described as “the four horns of the golden altar which is before God.”  We read of the golden altar back in Exodus 30:1-7:

And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon: of shittim wood shalt thou make it. A cubit shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof; foursquare shall it be: and two cubits shall be the height thereof: the horns thereof shall be of the same. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, the top thereof, and the sides thereof round about, and the horns thereof; and thou shalt make unto it a crown of gold round about. And two golden rings shalt thou make to it under the crown of it, by the two corners thereof, upon the two sides of it shalt thou make it; and they shall be for places for the staves to bear it withal. And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put it before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee. And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning: when he dresseth the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it.

So this is the “golden altar” and God specifies that it is primarily for the burning of incense.  We looked at this earlier in our study in the Book of Revelation, as God relates incense to the prayers of the saints.  Well, that leads us to wonder when it says, “I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,” whether this “voice” is referring to the voice of the prayers of the saints, or is it referring to the Lord Jesus Christ?  We do not need to wonder, because even the prayers of the saints are “moved” by the Holy Spirit.  Remember the Holy Spirit brings utterings that we cannot manage to put into words, so, either way, it is God’s voice, whether He is working through the prayers of His people or whether the “horns of the altar” are referring to the Lord Jesus Christ and the voice would be the voice of Christ. 

It goes on to say in Revelation 9:14:

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

So the voice coming forth from the four horns of the golden altar which is before the throne of God is saying, “Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.”  Let us keep in mind that the Greek word “angels” can be translated also as “messengers,” so this could be saying, “Loose the four messengers.”  We will find that this is actually a better translation. 

The language of “four messengers” is also found back in Revelation 7:1-3:

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

We spent some time on this as we went through Revelation 7 earlier and we saw that, here, the angel “ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God,” is Christ and the “seal” is salvation.  And that is why it goes on to say in Revelation 7:4:

And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

Then twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes are said to be sealed and the implication is that they are to “hurt not,” or to put it another way, bring not their judgment until God has finished saving the elect from within the churches and congregations.  So God did not end the church age and remove His Spirit from the midst of the congregations and He did not loose Satan as an instrument of judgment until all the “firstfruits” (represented by the number 144,000 that were to be saved during the church age) were saved.  God “sealed” all the saints in due time, according to His timetable, prior to when judgment began on the churches the day before Pentecost, May 21, 1988; at that point, all the saints would have been “sealed” and all that were to be saved would have become saved, and then God brought the judgment upon the churches.

But there is another implication here that we did not spend too much time.  After the “144,000” were sealed, we read in Revelation 7:9:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

This great multitude are those that are saved, as we read a little further along, “out of great tribulation,” so they are the ones that God saved during the Great Tribulation.  But what we did not spend too much time on is answering the question: “How were they sealed?  How were they saved?  Were they also “sealed” with salvation, with the “earnest of the Spirit?”  Yes, of course, they were saved in the identical way as those that had been saved in the churches. 

Regarding those that were saved in the churches, God spelled out that twelve thousand were saved out of each of the tribes, and He made it nice and easy for us to see that the figurative “144,000” were sealed.  Then we understand that judgment began at the house of God following their sealing.

But, likewise, in the exact same manner, God then sealed the great multitude.  He did not break down the numbers for us, and He says it was a number “that no man can number,” but it was an enormous number of individuals.  There are suggestions in the Bible that it was millions upon millions of people (God saved the best numbers for last).  Yet, the idea is the same – He would have sealed those individuals, also.  The “144,000” were not the only ones to have been “sealed.”  Those that were saved “out of great tribulation” (the great multitude) would have had to have been sealed in the same way. 

So, as we read in Revelation 9:14, “Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates,” this loosing of the four angels identifies with the completion of the saving of the great multitude and the completion of God’s overall salvation program, which was finalized by May 21, 2011, when the Great Tribulation period ended.  It was at that point that the four angels were loosed which had been bound in the great river Euphrates.

We will spend some more time looking at the “four angels” and who they represent and why it says they were “bound in the great river Euphrates.”

As far as the Euphrates, this river was the boundary set by God on the Promised Land.  We find that information back in the Book of Genesis.  It says in Genesis 15:18:

In the same day JEHOVAH made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

So we find that God gives the Promised Land of Canaan and He sets the boundaries between two rivers: “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”  The river of Egypt would be the Nile, which is the main river of Egypt.  The Euphrates, “the great river,” identifies with Babylon. 

Someone might say, “Well, hold it, the Promised Land was given to the Israelites unto that river and, therefore, the river identifies with them.”  No – it does not, any more than the river of Egypt belongs to the Israelites; notice how God made a point to call it “the river of Egypt,” which shows possession: Who does the river of Egypt belong to?  It belongs to the Egyptians and, yet, it was a boundary of the Promised Land and, likewise, the Euphrates is the river of Babylon.  It does indicate where the land promised to Abraham comes to an end.  It is a boundary marker, but the river itself, the Euphrates, identifies with Babylon, just as the river of Egypt identifies with Egypt.

Lord willing, in our next study, we will continue to look at this very interesting language here.  We are going to spend some time looking at the “four angels” and why it is that God speaks of them as “loosed,” and why He says they had been “bound in the great river Euphrates.”  That is an interesting statement.  How can you bind “angels?”  If they are spirit beings, how can you bind them in a great river?