God is unleashing judgment upon humanity as a specific answer to the prayers of saints.
In 7th chapter we saw 4 angels were asked to hold the winds to blow on earth.
In 9th chapter 4 angels were released to unleash terrible blow on humanity.
These angels are fallen angels – demons.
Demons can only act with God’s permission, even to the very precise hour of a given day.
Nothing can change God’s timing.
The first demonic army attack of locusts was to inflict pain and torture on humans.
The second army of devils numbering 200 million in the shape of horses is set out to kill one third of human population.
They are precisely kept for this hour and day.
Verse 17 The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.
Do we take this description literal or images used to describe a modern warfare?
In the Scripture we come across spiritual armies on horses in the OT.
Elijah caught up to heaven in chariots of fire.
Elisha’s servant sees a vast army of angels on the horses and chariots of fire.
The overall description was that of supernatural armies of demonic spirits.
The death comes not by the teeth of the lion but by three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.
I would go with literal description than the symbols to compare them to chemical weapons.
Some thought that these are weapons of mass destruction.
But the main purpose is to kill one third of world’s population on earth.
The death occurred to the midpoint of tribulation is around 2 billion people.
Tails with snake heads were to inflict injury to people.
At this point we need to keep in view that half of the world population was either raptured, killed in natural calamities or supernatural death blows from demonic attacks.
Verse 20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
These people are still listening to the message of hope from 144000 messianic Jews.
But they chose to follow their own progressive thinking and the ways of the world.
Satanic worship will be at all time high and people will be very religious worshiping Satan in all forms available to them.
They rejected the truth of the living God and carried away by the evil in ‘strong delusion’.
Worship of demons will lead to the other forms of evils in human society.
When we see God of the Bible is replaced with human hand made gods, all hell breaks loose.
Evil is practiced in all walks of life on earth and the entire atmosphere is thick with occult practices, sorcery, divination, murder and finally ends in sexual indulgences.
One Scholar said like this.
“Many of the things taking place today, such as the widespread distribution of pornography, abortion on demand, the offer of free condoms to high school students, and the drive to legalize homosexual marriage, are all paving the way to what we read about here in the tribulation period”.
Immoral behavior is always the result of false religion and occult practices.
Far advanced technology creates delusion of the mind to reject God completely.
People begin to follow their progressive ideologies glorifying all forms of evil which contradict Biblical principles, morals, and values.
This leads to the stage that was described here in this chapter.
The events happening around them did not impact people and they continue to reject the Living God of Bible.
During this time in tribulation the humans reach a point of no return as they began to think they are gods.
Unfortunately we are witnessing such delusion of human behavior right before our very own eyes.
What does that say to us today?
The Lord Jesus coming for HIS Church is very close at hand.
My question is are you ready to hear the trumpet sound and meet the Lord Jesus in midair.