Revelation 9:13-21: The 6th Trumpet

Outline

• The source of the plague
• The instruments of the plague

Introduction

What is the worst judgement God can inflict this side of eternity? Death! To seal you for judgement, for the bible teaches in Hebrews 9:27, ‘And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement.’ When you are dead it is too late to repent. We are in the last three woes of intensifying judgement in the 7 trumpets. The first four had to do with God judging our environment, then the woes came to intensify God’s judgement and we have seen God’s intensified judgements in the form of increased, tormenting demonic oppression. Now we see a greater judgement still a plague of death. The locusts were not given license to kill but the horsemen are.

Seeing that death is indeed an irreversible sealing for judgement this helps us to appreciate the grace God exercised in Eden when Adam sinned. God promised them death but instant death would have sealed them for eternal judgement. It would have made things simpler for God to judge Adam and the devil and then begin the human race again. However, instead of acting in justice He acted in mercy and delayed the death of Adam and Eve. He gave the promise of a Saviour. Thereby He created a window of opportunity for babies to be born, and though born in sin, they now had opportunity to be saved. This window is a grace period. God can harden sinners for a period but until the sinner dies there is the hope of repentance and eternal life. However, if God wants to close that grace window all He has to do is kill you. All that has to happen is you die in your sin and you are irreversibly sealed for the day of judgement your eternity already determined. In the 7 trumpets we have seen God afflicting the earth with plagues and we have seen people dying 9:11, but now we see a third of mankind deliberately removed from the earth as their lives are cut short.

As we look at this plague of death we will look at where it comes from, and who enacts it.