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"And the four angels were loosed, even those having been made ready for the hour
and day and month and year, that they should kill the third part of men."
What stress this passage lays on the exact moment! In our puny computations of
prophetic times we are full of suppositions. A published list of the dates and times
suggested when certain prophecies are supposed to have been, or will be, fulfilled, would
be its own confutation. There are no round figures with God. To us, as to Habakkuk, He
speaks:--
"The vision is yet for the appointed time, and panteth toward the end, and shall not lie:
though it tarry, wait for it: because it will surely come, it will not delay."
Not only the year, but the month of that year is foreordained. Not only the month, but
the day, yea, the very hour of that day is a matter of Divine provision. And what is all
this careful provision for?--the killing of the third part of mankind! Upon the release of
these four angels, there appears an army whose immense numbers, and whose monstrous
character, while admittedly beyond our present comprehension, is not beyond our simple
faith. The number is "two myriads of myriads", or 200,000,000, and such an army passes
beyond human understanding. Yet the number must not be explained away, for the
apostle adds, "I heard the number".
The description of these horses is unlike that of any creature known to man. Fire,
smoke and brimstone come out of the horses' mouths and kill the third part of men. The
tails also of these horses have heads like serpents. Like the locusts of the preceding
trumpet they belong not to our creation--they are from beneath. The description of these
creatures is indeed strange, yet we are not therefore to conclude that the passage is
figurative. The apostle has described these beings in full detail because they are so
strange. God had said:--
"I will do marvels (pala, miracles, wondrous works, used of the plagues of Egypt,
Psalm 106: 22) which have not been done in all the earth nor in any nation"
(Exod. 34: 10).
What seems a greater marvel is revealed in the concluding verses of Rev. 9::--
"And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the
works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold and silver
and brass and stone and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk. Neither
repented they of their murders nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their
thefts."
To think that this great woe should visit mankind, leaving behind one third of the race
dead, and not bring about repentance, seems almost impossible. "The heart of man is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?"
Some commentators find a difficulty in interpreting these words literally, believing it
to be impossible that the enlightened world should ever fall into idolatry of such gross a
type. If the reader will reflect, he will soon discover incipient idolatry with the actual,
literal idols of gold, silver, brass, wood and stone about him. How many have their