The world may spin out of human control, but it has never slipped out of God’s control. Death may take a human life, but it can never take away the authority held in the hands of Christ.
By Paul Zhang
Scripture: Revelation 9:13–19
Revelation 9:13--19
The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and John heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar before God. The voice commanded the sixth angel to release the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates. These four angels, prepared for the appointed year, month, day, and hour, were released to kill a third of mankind. John heard the number of the mounted troops: two hundred million. In the vision he saw horses and riders whose breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and sulfur-yellow. The horses had heads like lions, and fire, smoke, and sulfur came from their mouths. By these three plagues—fire, smoke, and sulfur—a third of mankind was killed. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails were like snakes, with heads by which they inflicted harm.
The world may spin out of human control, but it has never slipped out of God's control. Death may take a human life, but it can never take away the authority held in the hands of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, today we continue in Revelation chapter 9.
When the fifth trumpet sounded, the bottomless pit was opened.
Darkness came out. Suffering came upon the earth.
But God said, in effect, "No further." "You are not permitted." "Five months."
So in the previous sermon we saw this truth:
Darkness is real, but darkness is always limited.
We ended with one sentence:
The bottomless pit may be opened, but the Lamb still reigns.
Now the sixth angel sounds his trumpet.
The second woe begins.
And the situation clearly becomes more severe.
The fifth trumpet was primarily about suffering:
They were not permitted to kill them, but only to torment them for five months.
But with the sixth trumpet, death appears.
"To kill a third of mankind." (Revelation 9:15)
Brothers and sisters, human beings are often most proud when we imagine that we are in control of our own lives.
How much will I make this year?
What business will I do next year?
What school will my children attend?
When will I retire?
How much money should I keep in the bank?
When will the house be paid off?
How can I take better care of my health?
We like to make plans because planning gives us a feeling:
"My life is still in my hands."
But death has one characteristic:
Death never asks for your permission.
When the cancer report comes back, death does not first ask how much money you have in the bank.
When a car accident happens, it does not first ask whether today fits your schedule.
When you can no longer draw another breath, the deed to your house cannot breathe for you.
You may own three houses.
You may own thirty houses.
But when death comes, not one of those houses can lie in the coffin for you.
So Revelation 9 is not showing us a horror movie.
God is tearing down one of humanity's deepest illusions:
You are not the master of life.
But this passage also tells us another truth:
Death is not the master of life either.
Even when the power of death appears overwhelming,
it still has an appointed time, a defined scope, and a boundary.
So remember this today:
The world may spin out of human control,
but it has never slipped out of God's control.
Verse 13 says:
"The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God."
Notice what happens.
When the sixth trumpet begins,
the first thing John hears is not an army of horses.
Not chariots.
Not fire.
Not smoke.
Not sulfur.
The first thing he hears is:
a voice.
Where does this voice come from?
"From the four horns of the golden altar before God."
Why the altar again?
Because the altar has already appeared in Revelation.
In chapter 6, John saw those who had been killed because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.
They were:
"under the altar."
And they cried out:
"How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true...?"
—Revelation 6:10
That is not the prayer of people living comfortably.
It is the prayer of people who suffer.
It is a prayer filled with tears.
It is the prayer that says:
"Lord, how much longer?"
"Lord, do You see?"
"Lord, why have You not yet brought justice?"
Then in chapter 8, John sees the golden altar again.
This time:
"the prayers of all God's people"
rise before God with the incense.
The incense rises.
Fire from the altar is thrown down.
The trumpets begin to sound.
And now, in chapter 9, at the sixth trumpet:
a voice once again comes from the golden altar before God.
Brothers and sisters, this connection is very important.
We must not say:
"Because one Christian prayed, therefore a particular war happened."
Scripture gives us no such formula.
But Revelation does show us this:
The prayers of suffering saints do not disappear.
Do you think your prayers simply fell to the ground?
Do you think God did not see the tears you cried while kneeling beside your bed?
Do you think God has forgotten the child you have prayed for—perhaps for ten years, perhaps for twenty years—who still does not believe?
Do you think no one hears the cries of the church when it suffers persecution?
Do you think the words whispered from a hospital bed—
"Lord, help me!"
—were too quiet to reach heaven?
No!
The prayers no one hears on earth
are heard by the throne of heaven.
God's silence
does not mean that God has closed His ears.
God's waiting
does not mean that God has forgotten.
One day God will make it clear to every form of evil:
He is holy.
He is righteous.
Violence will not win forever.
Lies will not win forever.
Persecution will not win forever.
Murder will not win forever.
And death certainly will not win forever.
So the sixth trumpet first tells us:
God has not forgotten the tears of His people.
The throne is still there.
The altar is still there.
God is still in control.
Verse 14 says:
"Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates."
There are two things we need to notice here.
The first is:
the Euphrates River.
The second is:
bound.
For readers familiar with the Old Testament, "the Euphrates" was not simply the name of a river on a map.
It was closely associated with powerful threats from the north and east in Israel's history.
Assyria and Babylon were among the great powers whose threat came from that direction.
The prophets also used the Euphrates and its flooding waters as imagery of judgment.
For example, Isaiah 8 pictures the power of the king of Assyria like the mighty, overflowing waters of the Euphrates.
So for someone familiar with the Old Testament, hearing the word "Euphrates" could immediately suggest:
A threat is gathering beyond the boundary.
For readers living in the Roman world in John's day, that direction could also awaken fears about the empire's eastern frontier, including the threat of Parthian cavalry.
But John does not say:
"These horsemen are the Parthians."
So we should not reduce the vision to one particular historical army.
The central point is this:
The threat people fear most may come from beyond the boundary,
but it still cannot cross the boundary God has established.
They were not free to act whenever they wanted.
They could not say:
"I think I will come out today."
They had to wait.
Wait for what?
For the moment God permitted.
Verse 15 says:
"And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind."
Brothers and sisters, listen carefully:
Year.
Month.
Day.
Hour.
God's timing is not vague.
It is not "approximately."
It is not "more or less."
We love to make plans.
How much will I earn this year?
Next year I will open another store.
The year after that I will buy another house.
What will happen after my children graduate?
What will I do after retirement?
Where will I be ten years from now?
Planning itself is not wrong.
The Bible does not oppose wise planning.
But James reminds us:
"You do not even know what will happen tomorrow."
—James 4:14
So the question is not:
"May I make plans?"
The real question is:
Have you turned your plans into your god?
We often imagine that if our plans are detailed enough,
if we buy enough insurance,
save enough money,
and get enough medical checkups,
then life will be secure.
But Revelation reminds us:
You do not fully control even tomorrow.
Yet this truth is not meant to drive us into panic.
Because when your clock seems to fall apart,
God's clock has not.
When the world's clock seems to fall apart,
God's clock has not.
War may suddenly break out.
The economy may suddenly change.
Illness may suddenly come.
Life may suddenly take a turn we never expected.
We say:
"How could this happen?"
But God never rises from His throne and says:
"How could this happen? I never saw this coming!"
Never.
Brothers and sisters:
The world may be in chaos,
but God's timing is not.
History is not without a Lord.
What we finally discover is this:
We are not the lords of history.
Then verse 16 says:
"The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number."
Two hundred million.
Then come:
Fire.
Smoke.
Sulfur.
Heads like lions.
Tails like snakes.
Death comes.
John is not asking us to open a world map and say:
"Which country has an army of two hundred million?"
If we read Revelation that way, the book quickly becomes a codebook for interpreting the latest news headlines.
What John wants us to feel is this:
A destructive power has arrived that human beings simply cannot control.
Verse 18 says:
"A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths."
Brothers and sisters,
do not read that sentence too lightly.
A third of humanity dies.
If we simply sit here debating:
"What exactly does one-third mean?"
we may forget that behind every number is a human life.
If three people are sitting together,
one is gone.
If a family has three people,
one falls.
If a city loses one out of every three people,
that is not a numerical puzzle.
That is death.
The Bible never romanticizes death.
Death is an enemy.
Paul says:
"The last enemy to be destroyed is death."
—1 Corinthians 15:26
And here, death also appears within the vision of God's judgment.
Why "one-third"?
We should not force it into a mathematical formula for calculating the end times.
But beginning in chapter 8, "one-third" appears again and again:
A third of the earth.
A third of the trees.
A third of the sea.
A third of the rivers.
A third of the sun, moon, and stars.
And now:
a third of mankind.
The point is clear:
The judgment is already severe,
but it is not yet the final judgment.
It is not total.
Some are still alive.
There is still time.
The warning is still sounding.
And that is what makes "one-third" so sobering.
It does not merely tell you:
"Someone has fallen."
It asks those who remain alive:
"Are you awake yet?"
Brothers and sisters,
when you see someone else suffer,
do not make your first question:
"Was that person worse than I am?"
When Jesus spoke about disasters in Luke 13, He turned the question directly back toward His listeners:
"Unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Luke 13:1--5 tells us that some people reported to Jesus how Pilate had mingled the blood of certain Galileans with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." He then spoke of the eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them and asked whether they were more guilty than everyone else living in Jerusalem. Again He answered, "No! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Jesus was not teaching that every disaster is a direct punishment for one particular sin committed by one particular person.
No.
In fact, He refuses to let us judge others that way.
Instead, He turns tragedy into a mirror and asks:
"Are you yourself ready?"
Brothers and sisters,
how many warnings have we already seen?
We have watched loved ones die.
We have watched friends become sick.
We have watched our own bodies suddenly develop problems.
We have watched a business do well yesterday and suddenly struggle
today.
We have watched a healthy person end up in a hospital bed only a few
months later.
These things are not invitations to speculate:
"Who sinned?"
They are reminders:
Human life is very short.
You think you still have plenty of time.
But you do not know.
You say:
"When I retire, then I will really love the Lord."
"When my children are older, then I will serve."
"When my business becomes stable, then I will start keeping the Lord's
Day faithfully."
"When I have made enough money, then I will seriously pursue God."
"When I am older, then I will deal with the condition of my soul."
Brothers and sisters,
Who told you that you are guaranteed a 'later'?
You may have a house,
savings,
insurance,
a business,
and carefully made plans.
None of these things is sinful.
But:
Do not make them your savior.
When the cancer report comes,
money may buy medicine,
but it cannot buy eternal life.
Doctors may treat your body,
but they cannot guarantee that you will never die.
A house may shelter you from wind and rain,
but it cannot shelter you from death.
Insurance may leave money for your family,
but it cannot carry your soul into the kingdom of God.
So what hope do we have?
Thanks be to God, Revelation does not bring us face to face with death and then leave us there.
In chapter 1, the risen Jesus has already said:
"I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."
—Revelation 1:18
Brothers and sisters,
This is the gospel!
Jesus does not stand outside the grave merely teaching us how to face death.
He entered it Himself.
He truly died.
He truly was buried.
But on the third day:
He came out!
The grave could not hold Him.
Death could not swallow Him.
Hades could not defeat Him.
So the Christian hope is not:
"I will certainly never die."
The Christian hope is:
"Even if I die, death cannot keep me."
Why?
Because my Lord has risen.
He holds the keys of death and Hades!
Brothers and sisters,
today's passage gives us three pictures.
The first is:
the altar.
It tells us:
God has not forgotten the tears of His saints.
The second is:
the appointed time.
The year, the month, the day, and the hour.
It tells us:
God's clock has never lost its time.
The third is:
one-third.
It tells us:
The judgment is severe, but it is still limited; the warning is still sounding.
But brothers and sisters,
if we stop here,
we still have not fully understood Revelation 9.
Because the most terrifying thing has not yet appeared.
It is not the army of two hundred million.
It is not the fire.
It is not the smoke.
It is not the sulfur.
It is not even the death of a third of mankind.
The most frightening words come in the next verse.
Verse 20 says:
"The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent..."
Still they did not repent!
Brothers and sisters,
this is the true tragedy of humanity.
The world is shaken,
but the heart is not shaken.
Death comes close,
but the heart does not wake up.
God warns again and again,
and people still say:
"I'll deal with it later."
We must ask ourselves the same questions.
How much have we experienced over the years?
Illness.
A pandemic.
Economic ups and downs.
The loss of loved ones.
Our own bodies growing older year after year.
But has my heart become softer?
Or harder?
Do I love the Lord more?
Or do I love the world more?
Am I more willing to obey?
Or have I simply become better at making excuses for myself?
Am I more willing to repent?
Or have I listened to so many sermons that I know everything—and change nothing?
Brothers and sisters,
Do not treat God's patience as capital you can spend.
Do not treat God's delay as permission to gamble with your soul.
Do not keep saying:
"There is always tomorrow."
The trumpet is still sounding
because the final trumpet has not yet finished sounding.
The warning is still being heard
because the door of repentance has not yet closed.
Today you can still hear the Word of God.
Today you can still confess your sin.
Today you can still turn back.
Today you can still come to the cross.
That itself is grace!
So:
Do not wait.
If there is a sin you need to leave,
leave it today.
If there is someone you need to forgive,
forgive today.
If there is a relationship that needs reconciliation,
go and seek reconciliation today.
If you have wandered away from God,
come back today.
If you have never truly entrusted your life to Christ,
come to Him today.
Because:
Death never makes an appointment with you.
But today,
grace is inviting you.
The One who was dead and is now alive forever and ever
still holds the keys of death and Hades.
So do not run to the world.
Do not run to money.
Do not run to your own plans.
Run to Christ.
Cling to the cross.
Turn to the risen Lord.
Because:
The world may spin out of human control,
but it has never slipped out of God's control;
death may take away a person's breath,
but it cannot take the keys from the hands of Christ;
the grave may receive the body for a time,
but it cannot hold those who belong to the risen Lord.
Today, if you hear His voice,
do not harden your heart.
Amen.
Allow Google Analytics to help us understand anonymous website usage? Prayer text, form content, and other sensitive text are not sent to analytics.
