1. It is evoked by a cry out of the four horns of the altar. It comes from the immediate presence of God, and therefore with the sanction of God. The call itself is the common voice of all four of the horns of the altar, indicating the energy and the universality of the demand for vengeance, and of that vengeance itself. The implication is that God’s appointed way of forgiveness has been set aside; that the Divine system of gracious atonement and salvation has been rejected, and that the wickedness of earth has risen so high, especially in point of antagonism to the Cross, that even the altar itself, which otherwise cries only for mercy, is forced into a cry for vengeance.
2. The command issues to the angel who sounds this trumpet. The command itself is the command of the contemned Saviour. But it is addressed to the angel. He obeys it as his Divine commission, and thus presides over the administration ushered in by his trumpet. He looses the imprisoned forces, and sets them free for action.
3. Other angels are the more direct executors of the woe. Some have taken these to be good angels. I do not so regard them. Good angels are free, not bound. Good angels would not destroy men, except by special command of God; but these had only to be loosed, and they at once rushed forth for slaughter, impelled to the dreadful business by their own malicious nature. They were bound in mercy to our race, and here they are let loose in judgment. Their number also indicates the universality of their operations.
4. The moment the four bound angels are released from their constraint, hosts of death-dealing cavalry overrun the earth. As there are infernal locusts, so there are infernal horses; and as the former were let forth to overrun the world with their torments under the fifth trumpet, so the latter are let forth to overrun the world with still more terrible inflictions under the sixth.
5. Fearful havoc of human life is made by these infernal horses. To say nothing of the dread and horror which their presence inspires, and the confusion which their advent strikes into every department of society, it is here written, that, by these horses, one out of every three of the whole human family is killed, destroyed from the face of the earth.
6. The continuance of this plague is equally extraordinary.
7. The object of this woe is partly retributive and partly reformatory. It belongs to the judicial administrations of the great day. It is God’s terrific judgment upon the world, which has disowned allegiance to Him, and rejected the mediation of His Son. It is the righteous indignation of outraged justice which can no longer endure the superlative wickednesses of men. And yet, in wrath God remembers mercy. He suffers on]y one-third of therace to fall a prey to this tremendous woe. He delighteth not in the death of the wicked, but would rather that they should turn from their evil ways and live. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)
The rest … repented not.--
Impenitence
So it was in the beginning, so it will be to the end. All outward plagues, all outbursts of moral evils, all apostasies in Divine societies, were and are trumpets of God; those who acknowledge His goodness and truth will tremble and rejoice that He is speaking to them; that He is calling them to repent; that He is preparing the way for a manifestation of Himself. But these trumpets, let them sound as loud and long as they may, seldom stir s man who disbelieves in a living and good God to confess Him. The terror which is in them stupefies rather than quickens. The slumberer is half roused out of his dream; is bewildered; takes a fresh opiate; flies to the gods that neither see, norhear, nor walk; flies from Him whom he has only recognised in thunderings and lightnings. The sentence is everlastingly true that not the fire, nor the earthquake, nor the blast rending the mountains, but only the still small voice reaches the heart, andcompels it to bow. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
Man’s stubborn will
I. All men need repentance.
II. God pleads with men to bring them to repentance. These judgments of which we read are not God’s primary dealings with men. He does not begin in this manner. God has pleaded with men by His Spirit in their consciences. By His goodness, giving them all manner of providential mercies. Then, more especially by His Word.
III. But these milder methods often fail.
IV. Sterner methods are then tried.
V. But even these, at times, and for long time, fail. This is the declaration of our text (also Jer_5:3; Jer_8:6; Rom_2:4-5). So was it with Pharaoh, whenthe plagues one after another, which in many respects resembled these trumpet-plagues, came upon him.
VI. What is the reason of this? The answer is manifold, as, for example:
1. Those that are spared argue from that fact that they need not repent.
2. Sin deadens belief in God. It makes men practical atheists.
3. God’s judgments are put down to secondary causes.
4. “Perfect love casteth out fear.” This is true in a sense the apostle never meant. Let the heart love sin, as it is so prone to do, and that love will utterly cast out the fear of God.
5. The law of habit. You may bend the sapling, but not the tree.
VII. How intensely serious are the teachings of this fact! Is it true that, though God sends judgment after judgment upon men, they will yet not repent? Then:
1. More judgments and worse will come.
2. How we need to watch and pray lest we be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin!
3. What imperative need there is of the power of the Holy Spirit! (S. Conway, B. A.)
