Tag: Euphrates

Judgment is Coming

The title of ”Judgment is Coming”, I fear, is too hopeful. It may be that we are already judged!

…the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” (15) 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. (Revelation 9:14-15 NIV)

Sometime in the future, perhaps nearer than we think, the forces of retribution and bloodshed will be unleashed.

muslims340x340
It may just be a humorous poster in a New York subway, but it may also be fiercely prophetic (without the humour).

The Euphrates River runs through the geographic heart of the Islamic world, and it is from there that those demonic forces, apparently bound and restricted throughout the centuries, will be released to “kill a third of mankind”.

Shocking? Yes.

Why? Because this generation has descended into wickedness. Just one example will suffice! We have killed the most vulnerable, our own children. An entire generation of humans, before or at birth, have silently screamed. We call it abortion. We’ve justified it, legalised it, and smugly sanitised our crime – which compounds our guilt!

And one day we’ll be held to account for those sins.

But, even then, with a third of humanity killed in less than a year, it seems, in the words of the prophet John, we’ll still be reluctant to confess our guilt.

Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Revelation 9:21 NIV)

It will take a far greater Judgment to teach us what is right. God hasten that day.

What was Jesus telling John?

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in 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. And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulphur yellow; 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.

(Revelation 9:14-18 NKJV)

What was Jesus telling John in this vision? Is this a warning for our generation? Or is this simply an allegorical bit of mumbo-jumbo, safe to ignore and open to ridicule?

Might we be wise to heed Jesus on this one? Is this a prophetic picture of what is brewing near the Euphrates River today, ditto, Iran? Is the tension on the Korean peninsula part of this equation?

“Fire, smoke and brimstone” sounds like thermo-nuclear war, doesn’t it!