Are you a fan of scary movies? Not horror films (ugh), but movies whose plot centers on escaping something fierce and powerful? My daughters, grandchildren, and I recently watched such a movie. It was the live-action version of How To Train Your Dragon, as part of the summer “dollar movie” schedule. (The popcorn cost three times as much as the tickets!)

It was pretty intense for a five-year-old, in my (old granny) opinion. Fire-breathing dragons the width of a movie screen were quite effective! It wasn’t all that scary, however, because we knew it was “just a movie.” Nothing on the screen came close to the real-life experiences of my sweet grandchildren.

While fossils tell us that dinosaurs once roamed our earth, where do storytellers find inspiration for creatures like fire-breathing dragons?

In the Bible!

Revelation 9:13-21 could make a great movie script, if it weren’t for the fact that it describes events that will actually take place one day.

Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind. The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. And this is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm. The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.

ChatGPT generated the image above based on these verses. Four of them are frightening. Can you imagine an army of two hundred million?

Two observations about this passage…

This is a literal event that will occur at a specific time according to God’s plan.

These four (fallen) angels were likely bound thousands of years ago, around the time of Adam and Eve’s eviction from the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:8-14 tells us that a river flowing out of the garden divided into four other rivers: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. God sees the end from the beginning, and these angels were bound for a specific purpose and a specific time. They were prepared for “the hour and day and month and year” of their release. You can’t get more literal than that!

In addition to the time reference, John emphasizes the number of the horsemen, evidently led by these four angels. He says, “I heard the number of them.” He stresses the exact number revealed to him, as if to say, “This is not symbolism!” It’s a real, finite number of evil demonic forces.

The magnitude of destruction and death fails to prompt rebellious men to repent.

The rebelling world during this event knows the terrible things happening are judgments from God (see Revelation 6:16-17). This is why anyone claiming faith in Jesus will be hated, and ultimately martyred for their testimony (Revelation 7:13-14). Yet, even as a third of those still living on the earth are killed, they refuse to abandon their sin, repent, and ask for God’s mercy. It sounds like there are few if any believers left alive by this point in the Tribulation, as John says, “The rest of mankind…did not repent.”

Our world today is quite wicked, and quite hostile toward the gospel. Can you imagine the state of things when “the rest of mankind” is so caught up in the worship of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood idols, along with murders, sorceries, immorality, and theft, that they refuse to repent in the face of death?

What’s our takeaway?

Sin hardens hearts. If we persist in it, we will eventually be unable to repent. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit. His voice will grow quieter, and our sin will be so loud that we can’t hear Him.

There is a calendar and a clock in heaven. God’s sovereign plan for our world is unfolding according to His timetable. A day is coming when men will be unable to repent. May it not be so today!

Ephesians 4:17-19 – So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 – But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these.

Psalm 95:7-9 – For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me, they tried Me, though they had seen My work.