Armies of Evil Spiritual Powers

Reflections on Revelation 9:13-21

When the angel blows the sixth trumpet, a voice speaks to him from the horns of the golden altar.  In the earthly tabernacle, the golden altar was the altar of incense, which stood immediately in front of the curtain separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place (Exodus 30:1 ff.).  Incense was offered daily on this altar, and the blood of a sin offering on the Day of Atonement was sprinkled on the horns of this altar once a year (Exodus 30:10; cf. Leviticus 4:7).  In the heavenly temple, the prayers of the saints are offered on the golden altar (Revelation 8:3), and the blood of Slain Lamb on the horns of that altar also pleads the cause of the saints and commands that the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates be set loose.

A vast army numbering 200,000,000 is unleashed on impenitent mankind and kills a third of them.  In the Old Testament, God sent the armies of Assyria and Babylonia, which were beyond the Euphrates, to discipline an impenitent Israel which had given itself to idolatry, violence, and theft. Here, the armies attack those who persecute God's people, but they do not repent.  Their impenitence vindicates God's coming judgment. 

Every war has a spiritual dimension.  In the sixth seal, the armies are the agents of evil nations, yet God uses them again to accomplish his divine purpose just as God used Assyria and Babylonia. 

I have seen similar things in my own lifetime.  Evil spiritual forces were certainly behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  They should have served as a warning to the ungodly of our nation who promote and profit from pornography, convict those who oppose ungodly lifestyles of hate crimes, scoff at those who honor marriage, despise those who oppose abortion, arrest those who pray in public, and denounce the preaching of Christ as intolerance.  The attacks did not halt our nation's slide into unrighteousness.  If greater disasters destroy our nation in the future, the failure to change our sinful ways will fully justify God's judgment.  Like Habakkuk, we may wonder why God uses such evil nations to accomplish his purpose, but we must trust God's plan.