Revelation 9:13-15
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." And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.

As heaven pauses in silence, after conquest, war, famine, death, martyrdom, and cosmic shaking has been unleashed upon the earth, the words of the Lord's Prayer come to my mind.

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be You name.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

And so it is, the kingdom is here. The voice that now speaks does not come from the throne first, nor from the Lamb in isolation. It comes from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. This is the same altar where, in chapter 8, the prayers of the saints were mixed with incense and rose before Him. The same altar from which fire was taken and thrown upon the earth.

The place of intercession and the place of judgment are not two different positions in heaven. They are one. The same altar the redeems is the altar that judges.

God now commands the sixth trumpet. The church has been taken from the earth. The Holy Spirit is now preparing the bound angel armies at the great river Euphrates. These are not free agents. They have been bound. They have been prepared. The language is exact. Nothing here is accidental, delayed by chance, or hurried by panic. The battle plan has been preordained. The King who taught us to pray "Your will be done" is the King who has appointed even this hour.

They are released so that they would kill a third of mankind.

Is this mercy still?

It is the severe mercy of a holy King, not the mild mercy we prefer. The text itself keeps showing us the limit. A third.

Two-thirds remain.

That remaining number is not an accident of war. Look immediately after these verses. "The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands…nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts" (Revelation 9:20–21).

Who are they? The worst of the worst?

I don't know about "worst", only that they worshipped demons, practiced sorcery and witchcraft. They are liars, thieves, murderers and sexually immoral. But maybe they are the worst when you see it from that catalog. It's what I imagine the worst looks like.

And probably the most damning thing is that they would not repent. No matter what havoc and destruction is rained down upon them they've held out for their worldview. It's that same hardness of heart that Pharaoh showed when the plagues fell upon Egypt. It is the same refusal Jesus named when He said that if they will not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. It is the heart that would rather keep its idols than come to the altar that both redeems and judges.

They'd rather be sifted by Satan than bend their will to The Lamb. That is why "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" is not a tame prayer. In heaven the will of God is done with joy. On earth, in this hour, it is done in judgment against those who have already judged Him (The Lamb) unworthy. The kingdom is here. The King has spoken from the altar. And a world that will not repent has chosen its worldview over eternal life in Him.

They are bound to their fate. They are bound to that refusal.
Likewise their destruction has been bound.

The four angels at the Euphrates were not wandering. They were bound. They were prepared for the hour and day and month and year. When the voice from the four horns said "Release," what had been held in check was not invented in that moment. It was appointed.

Satan is not writing this last chapter in human history.

There are "realms" granted to fallen angels and demonic forces. Authorities and principalities, open doors, strongholds. Places where they have encamped because they've been invited. Scripture does not pretend otherwise.

This is not some Hollywood script for a horror movie. Jesus spoke of the strong man whose house must be bound before his goods are plundered. John has already shown us the angel of the abyss, Apollyon, and a star fallen from heaven who was given the key to the bottomless pit. Binding and loosing, keys and realms, granted authority that is real and yet never ultimate, this is the world the sixth trumpet inhabits. These are those who wind up in the lake of fire.

The four angels at the Euphrates belong to that map. They had a realm. They were bound there, at the great river that had long marked the edge of empire and the path of invasion. This is the territory of the earth that has been long preserved for this day.

An open door into the unseen realm is still a door with a frame. It's like an eye, a window into that demonic realm.

Someone set the boundary.

Someone appointed the hour when the boundary would be lifted. People do not merely hold a progressive worldview; they inhabit a realm that has been granted, for a time, to powers that hate the Lamb. They're hooked. Glad participants. That is why they would rather be sifted than bow down to God. And the irony is they are bound by the God they refuse to obey.

The vision next puts flesh on the loosed realm. Two hundred million, breastplates of fire and sapphire and sulfur, lion heads, breath of fire and smoke and sulfur, serpent tails that wound.

The same sulfur that will fill the lake of fire is already in their mouths. In Scripture sulfur (brimstone) is almost never decoration. It is the mark of God’s holy fire judgment against what will not repent. Look at Sodom and Gomorrah; there exists there still today "sulfur balls".

The mark of that judgment did not vanish into myth. In the region of the Dead Sea, on the high ground associated with the Cities of the Plain, men still find sulfur; nodules, "sulfur balls," burned into the soil and stone. They are not a Hollywood prop. They are what is left when holy fire falls on a place that would not repent. The land itself still testifies. This is what brimstone looks like when God has spoken.

What this army speaks and what trails behind them; both kill and both wound. A third of mankind dies. The limit still holds. Two-thirds remain, hooked. The unrepentant army that comes from The River Euphrates.

The Euphrates is never just water in Scripture. It is a line drawn by God. From the first map of the world, this river belongs to the region of the garden and the rise of the early empires. Later the Lord says to Abram, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18).

The Lord promised, covenanted with Abraham many nations, but the Euphrates is bound as the far edge of that inheritance. Beyond it are the powers that will become Assyria and Babylon. It is the direction from which covenant judgment rides. "Release" therefore means more than "let four angels go." It means the ancient boundary is no longer holding what it held.

Under the sixth bowl "the great river Euphrates was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east" (Revelation 16:12). The river itself is taken out of the way.

Two hundred million.

Who.

Fallen angels and a demonic host.

Human soldiers may be caught up in this havoc, but what John is shown is not first a nation. It is a prepared, numbered, a demon spawned hellish host.

Something trans-human. Hybrids probably, a mutation between machine, man, and demon. Something more than human is on the field. Heads like lions. Breath like the furnace of Sodom. Tails that strike as serpents. Empowered by idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and men who still worship them (Revelation 9:20).

Next time chapter 10.