Commentators on the Second Woe

Ray Stedman

Many of the commentators have claimed that this army of two hundred million is entirely composed of soldiers from the Eastern nations -- India, China, Japan, Indochina, etc. It is true that the reference to the Euphrates river indicates that a barrier is being removed so the Eastern armies can come into the west, but I do not believe that all two hundred million of these come from the East. The commentators have failed to note that there are four angels released who control this event. Four is the number of worldwide human government. It is a picture of the four directions of earth -- north, south, east and west -- and these soldiers come from all of these directions. It would be almost impossible for any one nation today, or even several of them (such as in NATO), to field an army of that size. No army on earth today has much more than five hundred thousand troops. To field an army of two hundred million would be logistically impossible, even for China. But they do not all come from the east. They come from all directions, and they will gather to one place. In Chapter 16 that place is named for us. There we find the Euphrates river appearing again and this time it is linked with the Mount of Megiddo in Israel, or Armageddon. So this is the first glimpse we have in Revelation of the great armies of earth that will come from all directions, east, south, north and west, and gather in the plain of Megiddo in the land of Israel for the great battle of the last days. This gathering of armies is further described by symbols, in Verses 17-19:

The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur[or brimstone]. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. (Revelation 9:17-19 NIV)

What can this be? Let us remember that we are reading an ancient book in which are described events that are still future to us. What we have here is modern warfare described in military terms of John's day. "Breastplates" of various colors suggest armored chariots -- i.e. tanks, missile launchers, and other vehicles of war, that are camouflaged with various colors (or perhaps are identified by national colors, since this is a conglomeration of armies coming together). "Lion's mouths" that are spouting fire and belching smoke suggest cannons and mortars -- even nuclear missiles -- killing with fire, radiation, and poisonous gases. Tails like snakes that do injury perhaps describe modern helicopters, gunships, which have a rotor at the tail where also machine-guns and missile launchers are located. This may even depict weapons not yet invented. I recognize it is difficult to say precisely what all this means, but it is obvious that here we have a great military campaign, which results in monstrous slaughter of enormous scope. We are gradually being informed of what is about to happen, and we will see other pictures of these same events as the book continues to unfold. The final scene under the sixth trumpet is the reaction of mankind to these strange and disastrous things.