Trumpet 6 / Vial 6

Revelation 9:13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

Revelation 16:12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

We are nearing the Second Coming of Christ and the judgements are getting worse. Within this one we are told at the trumpet blast 4 angels will be released from the river Euphrates, having been spiritually bound there for an amount of time we can only guess. If you look at Young's literal translation it actually says - 'Loose the four messengers who are bound 'AT' the great river Euphrates'. They are not bound at the bottom of the river, but at that location. We are told they were bound there in preparation for a specific time. The word 'prepared' in verse 15 has further meaning when you look at its interpretation.

Prepare, make ready, provide -
To make ready, prepare
To make the necessary preparations, get everything ready
Metaphor.
Drawn from the oriental custom of sending on before kings on their journeys persons to level the roads and make them passable.
To prepare the minds of men to give the Messiah a fit reception and secure his blessings

They are there to prepare the way, to make things ready and in the vial we are told that the Euphrates is dried up when the vial is poured on it, to make the way ready for the armies from the east. Before we look at the vial too much lets return to the very descriptive 6th trumpet which contains some intriguing points.

We have 4 angels bound at the Euphrates, which suggests that these are bad angels as they have not come down from heaven as others have but are bound or trapped on the earth. We also read they have armies, in the following verse Rev 9:16, we are told that the number of 'bodies' (army) in the 'cavalry' (horsemen) is 200,000,000. (Actual Greek says two myriads of myriads). The 4 angels must have had some rank in the heavenly realm to be in command of armies, and it would seem that the armies were bound with their leaders, if not, where were they waiting. I doubt God would give the 4 angels charge over 200,000,000 good angels.

We are given a description of an 'infernal cavalry' the horses have a body of a horse with the head of a lion and a tail of a serpent, with the head of a serpent at its end. The riders have breastplates of fire and brimstone, which matches what comes out of the horses mouth, and it is this which kills a third of all man. Whether people will see these creatures we are not told, unlike the locusts of the previous trumpet, they are described in Rev 9:20 collectively as plagues. What we do know is that even after this judgement people still do not repent of their ways but still worship devils and idols and blame God. I would assume that the fire, smoke and brimstone is more of a plague raining down on man in which Satan and his followers will give God the credit for, fuelling man's hatred even more.

It is now we go to the vial and see that during this time or immediately following 3 spirits go into the word one from the Anti-Christ, one from the false prophet and one from Satan himself. The purpose of these spirits or devils can be seen in verse 14 -

14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

They are deceiving spirits doing the will of Satan and go to the leaders of the earth, those with the power and might to command armies or countries. They con, deceive, promise, mystify and basically do anything to get the leaders to come as ONE to fight against Christ. Why would they do this? I believe that the devils promise the world to them and maybe the leaders do not tell their armies exactly why they are fighting, hence the gathering together. We do know that there are ten leaders in the world at that time and they are promises power and a cut of the earth, a kingdom. We know this from Revelation 17.

12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

We see form verse 12 that they receive power for one hour and give all that they have over to Satan for that power. We also see that in doing so they go against the ruling Church of the time which is the regenerated Rome. They turn against the Church and destroy it, thus clearing the way for them to give up their power and armies to Satan's command. In verse 17 we are told that God put it in their hearts to agree with Satan and hand over their authority, in doing so their fate was sealed and that of Satan and all mankind. In a matter of days it would all be over. But what of Babylon, the church how is it destroyed? Rev 18:21

21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

Here the destruction of Babylon is described in previous verses in Revelation 18 as happening in one hour, similar to the one hour in which the kings of the earth get their kingdoms (Rev 17:12). All the plagues which will come on the earth will happen to this city in one hour and all the world will see and lament its passing. Babylon is described in Revelation 17:18

18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Up to now the 'Church' has had some rule over the earth, giving guidance to the leaders of the earth and in the same breath taking everything that it wanted. It ruled with terror and sin and mixed the Word with evil to produce a church of Satan, while still promoting a church of God. But now Satan no longer needs it, and its hold over the leaders of the earth stands in his way, so he promises the leaders of the earth freedom from it rule and in 'one hour' they receive a kingdom and probably in that same hour Babylon is destroyed. It would seem they then know what they have done as in Revelation 18:9

9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

The armies of the world gather in a place called Armageddon, north of Jerusalem, a historical place, which has seen many conflicts over the years. It is not the actual place of the battle as we are led to believe from TV and films, but as it says in verse 16 'he gathered them together'. The actual battle takes place closer to Jerusalem. Also the battle isn't a nuclear war or final battle in which the world will destroys itself. It isn't the east verses the west or Russia verses America, but the world verses Christ and His chosen.

Satan knows that Christ is returning and gathers the armies poised over Jerusalem in an attempt to thwart Christ's return and setting up of a kingdom. He plans to take Jerusalem and destroy Christ in one move, or kill all of mankind in the process.