Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #28 of Revelation, chapter 9, and we are going to be reading Revelation 9:14-15:

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 prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

In our last study, we were discussing the “four angels” or “four messengers,” which are said to have been “bound in the great river Euphrates.”  They were commanded to be “loosed” and we saw that the language of being “bound” and “loosed” often relates to salvation.  We went to several passages where God uses language of a woman “being bound these fourteen years to Satan” and she was “loosed” from her infirmity.  Then Lazarus, when he was dead, was “bound” with graveclothes and the Lord commanded him to come forth and to “loose” him, and so on. 

Now the word “angels” is an English word that we get from the Greek word “angelos,” which would be translated as either “angels” or “messengers.”  The “four messengers” were bound in the great river Euphrates.  We also saw that Euphrates is a synonym for the great city Babylon.  The “four messengers” typify God’s elect which were “bound” in Babylon, in the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of this world.  They represent God’s elect from the four points of the compass, all over the earth.  They were “loosed” and this took place when God saved the great multitude and brought them “out of great tribulation.”  When someone becomes saved, by the grace of God, they have been delivered and “loosed” from their bondage to sin and Satan and loosed from the kingdom of darkness, which is, spiritual Babylon.

Let us move on to Revelation 9:15:

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.

These, “four messengers,” which typify God’s elect, are loosed and upon their loosing, preparation has been made ready by God to “slay the third part of men.”  Now what does the loosing of “four messengers” have to do with slaying the third part of men?  When we think about this and consider all of the Biblical information, we realize that, once again, God is emphasizing the nature of the judgment on the unsaved people of the world and, especially, in this case, it is the unsaved people within the churches and congregations; and the nature of that judgment is there is no more salvation.

God saved the great multitude and these are typified by these four messengers.   By the way, we can know that the great multitude is these four messengers because in verses 14 and 15 God is referring to them as “four messengers” and in verse 16 God makes a change in language and refers to them as “200 million.” They are one and the same; there is no movement to another subject and no language where God says we are done talking about the four messengers and we will begin to discuss the 200 million; He gives no warning or inkling that He is now going to discuss something else, because He is not – He is discussing the same group.  The “four messengers,” in verses 14 and 15, and the “200 million horsemen” that come into view in verse 16 are one and the same: they are speaking of God’s elect, that great multitude.  We can know this for certain when we look again at verse 15; the four messengers “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.”  Then we read of the 200 million horsemen and their horses, in verse 16, and fire and brimstone is associated with them; then notice in Revelation 9:18:

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

There it is: the “four messengers” are prepared to slay “the third part of men,” and now the 200 million horsemen and their horses also kill “the third part of men.”  They accomplish the identical task because it is the same group that is in view: the four messengers are another way to refer to the 200 million and the 200 million are clearly referring to God’s elect, all those whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

They had been “bound” in Babylon in captivity to sin and Satan and now they have been freed or loosed from that captivity, just as, historically, the Jews were “bound” in Babylon for that seventy year period; and that seventy year period typified the Great Tribulation.  Then at the end of the seventy years, what happened?  King Cyrus, also known as Darius, King of the Medes and the Persians, took the kingdom of Babylon and, shortly thereafter, he issued a proclamation setting all of the Jews free.  They could return to Judea. 

Previously, the Jews were under the rule of the King of Babylon and they were bound.  But once King Cyrus came suddenly (just as the Lord Jesus comes suddenly as a thief in the night) and took the kingdom of Babylon, the Jews were loosed.  That is exactly what happened at the end of the Great Tribulation period which concluded on May 21, 2011.  No longer were God’s elect “bound” in the Babylon of this world, but they had been set free by the coming of Christ and by the completion of His salvation program. 

All of those whose names were in His Book of Life were now found, as the Word of God had reached them with that worldwide declaration of Judgment Day, May 21, 2011, and God used that to save all His elect.  They are loosed and their loosing is used by God as a means of judgment (against the unsaved) in the Day of Judgment, because their “loosing” means there is no more “loosing” to be done; there is no more salvation to be had; no more grace to bestowed; no more mercy for God to grant; no more water of salvation to flow; no more light of the Gospel of salvation to shine.  No matter how we want to word it or look at it, it all means the same thing: the door is shut now because all of the elect have been brought into the kingdom of heaven.  That is what the loosing of these four angels, who typify God’s elect, is pointing to.

Let us look, again, at what God says in Revelation 9:15:

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.

Let us think about this wording that they “were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year.”  You know, when we say that Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011, we are giving a day (the 21^st day), a month (May) and a year (2011).  So we have three of the four time references that are given here, and the only thing we are lacking is an “hour.”  Yet, an “hour” was put forth; you may remember that it was determined that judgment would begin about 6 p.m. Jerusalem time.  I honestly cannot remember how that was developed, but it was determined that this would be the time when judgment would commence.  Even though I am not sure how that actual time of 6 p.m. was arrived at, it was then that people were looking for the literal great earthquake to occur and for outward events to take place.  When nothing like that happened, then people concluded it was wrong; it was incorrect; there was no judgment.

Yet we have learned that God brought about a spiritual judgment, so it very well could have been that on May 21, 2011, at 6 p.m. Jerusalem time, that the “hour” began in which God shut the door to heaven, and so forth.  No one would have noticed or seen any difference because it was spiritual in nature.

But there is another interesting “hour” that comes into view that I am familiar with, and that is the “hour” that concludes the “day of labor.”  What I mean is that the Bible speaks of there being “twelve hours in a day.”  We read that the Lord Jesus makes this statement in John 11:9:

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

This is a very interesting statement.  The Bible speaks of a “day of salvation,” and, of course, that is not referring to a literal 24-hour period, but to an extended day, just as we have learned that Judgment Day is not a literal 24 hours, but is taking place over the course  of (a likely) 1,600 days.  So the “day of salvation” had been going on for quite some time.  We read in Matthew, chapter 20, a parable in which this 12-hour day is put forth.  It says in Matthew 20:1-2:

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

Here, the householder would be a reference to God and the labourers are God’s people that work in the vineyard and the fruit would be the elect that are brought forth as God’s people labor in the Gospel.  It continues in Matthew 20:3:

And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace…

The “third hour” would be 9 a.m.  The day would have begun at 6 a.m.

It goes on to say in Matthew 20:3-6:

…and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour…

That would be 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.

… and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out…

And that would be 5 p.m.

…and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?

Then he hires these others to work in the vineyard at the 11^th hour.  Now let us skip down to Matthew 20:8-12:

So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

Now this tells us that the last group hired at the 11^th hour at 5 p.m. worked only “one hour.”  That would have brought the time to 6 p.m. and to the 12^th hour, the close of the work day.  Then it says that “even was come.”  What does that mean?  It means that God is letting us know that the Great Tribulation period, which is typified in the Book of Revelation in a few places as “one hour,” is the last hour of the work day in which the Gospel was to be gotten out into the world. 

That is exactly what we realized and what we have experienced.  God stirred up His people in an unprecedented way and they went forth with the Gospel, proclaiming it all over the earth in a final grand declaration that brought the news of God’s Word to all the elect everywhere in the world, in order that God could complete His salvation program.  Then the Great Tribulation ended on May 21, 2011, and the “hour” of Great Tribulation came to a close and the last hour of the work day concluded – the 12^th hour.  Therefore, we can liken Judgment Day, spiritually, to 6 p.m., which is exactly the Jerusalem time that had been worked out in actual physical time, when it was determined that Judgment Day would begin.  I do not think that was a coincidence.

Also, the “night” comes.  “Even” comes.  The sun is darkened and the moon does not give its light, and so forth, and there is no more spiritual light in the world.  Christ has departed from the world, as far as bringing the Light of salvation – never again will anyone become saved.  The “even” comes.  This is why Jesus said in John 9:4:

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day…

This is referring to the 12-hour period, as Jesus said, “Are there not twelve hours in a day?”  It is the 12-hour period that typifies the day of salvation.

… the night cometh, when no man can work.

He is referring to Himself.  Remember what was said earlier in the Gospel of John, in John 6:29:

Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Jesus is the “man” who said in John 9:4, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day.”  It is the work of granting faith to sinners and giving them belief of the truth.  The work of salvation is entirely Christ’s work, but this work is all done “during the day,” and then “the night cometh, when no man can work,” and this can only be a reference to Christ.  Who else does the work of salvation?  Nobody else can do it.  Man thinks he can do that work, but their works on their own behalf is not effectual, and God says, “No man is justified by the works of the law.”  So when it says, “when no man can work,” it is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, who will no longer do the work of granting belief, according to John 6:29. 

That is precisely where we find ourselves now, in this time period – in the Day of Judgment.  It is the “evening” time, because as it says in Revelation 9:15: “And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour,” (and we can confidently say 6 p.m., according to the parable of the vineyard) “and a day,” (the 21^st) “and a month,” (May) “and a year,” (2011) “for to slay the third part of men.”  The four messengers are set.  They are prepared on that day, precisely that time, to “slay the third part of men.”  Now we are familiar with the language of “the third part of men” because we encountered it repeatedly, back in Revelation, chapter 8.  Eleven times in Revelation, chapter 8, God spoke of bringing judgment on “the third part” of the trees, the water, the sun, the moon and the stars.  But not once did He speak of “slaying” the third part of men.  Only here in Revelation 9 does it say to “slay the third part of men,” and it repeats it twice.  It says in Revelation 9:18: “By these three was the third part of men killed…”

What can we understand by this?  Why the difference?   Why the focus on killing the third part of men here when it had been focusing primarily on language pointing to the Gospel – the light of the Gospel, the water of the Gospel, and so forth, as we read of the judgment in Revelation 8 as it speaks of the “third part” of this or that.  Well, one thing we can see that judgment on the third part totals thirteen: eleven times in Revelation, chapter 8, and two times here in Revelation, chapter 9, and that points to the judgment upon mankind, upon the professed people of God that comes after 13,000 years of earth’s history.  Then in 1988, there are 10,000 days of judgment: 8,400 days of judging the third part in the churches and then 1,600 days in which the third part are killed in the Day of Judgment, for an overall 10,000 days – the completeness of God’s judgment upon the third part. 

But the reason that God specifies “men” here in Revelation 9 is because, finally, the people of the churches are slain.  How can we say that?  What does that mean?  Were they not slain during the 23-year Great Tribulation period when judgment began at the house of God?  Yes and no.  Judgment began at the house of God and men were dying, spiritually, in the congregations and, yet, it was always possible for any person to have left the churches (as God commanded His people to do so).  If they had left the church, they could have positioned themselves in the world where the “latter rain” was falling and from man’s perspective, they could possibly have become saved and not become slain.  Yet, for any that remained in the churches up until the end of the 23-year period, finally, they were in a place where God was not saving, where the Holy Spirit was not working and where there was no salvation taking place in any church anywhere in the world. 

So, when the day of transition came, May 21, 2011, and the Day of Judgment on the world began, then all of these people, the “third part of men,” which would number around two billion, “were slain,” because they did not hearken to God.  They did not come out of the churches and, therefore, they could not possibly have become saved when God was saving the great multitude.  They are not a part of that great multitude because there was no “latter rain” falling in the churches and now they went from that “bad spiritual situation” to a far worse situation; now the judgment on the churches was complete and judgment began on the world and there was no more salvation anywhere in the world.  God had completed His salvation program, saving all of His elect and there was no more salvation left for them and this, in essence, slew the “third part of men.”

We will see a little later on in Revelation 9 that God speaks of the rest of the men that were not killed by these plagues and that would refer to the unsaved people outside of the churches and not a part of the “third part of men.”  We will explain how that works out in the Day of Judgment, but, certainly, God is emphasizing that this is the “more stripes” for those that knew the Father’s will and professed to be Christians.  They ought to have known better; they should have hearkened to God and believed His Word and, yet, they did not.  Therefore, at the very beginning of Judgment Day, at the very start, they are spiritually killed.   It is guaranteed they will die.  There is no hope for them, only that God permits people to pray that this cup might pass from them.  But, other than that, they have been slain.