Revelation 9:12-16

12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

After the five months of torment by these hellish creatures, one woe is past but there are still two more left to come when the sixth and seventh angels sound their trumpets.

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.

After the sixth trumpet blast, four angels are loosed that are bound in the Euphrates River. This prophecy gives the number of the horsemen (cavalry men) that will now be allowed to pass to the east of the Euphrates to kill one third of men. The number John said he heard was  two hundred million. There never was a time when such an army was possible before this generation.

Today such an army could come from the East; there are now more than three billion people east of the Euphrates River. The CIA fact book of the year 2004 said that China alone has more than two hundred million military fit men.

Abortion and infanticide of female children in China and India in this generation will create a disposable surplus of over one hundred million adult men who will have no chance for marriage and a normal family life. To a lesser extent for much the same reason there will also be surpluses of men in other countries of the Far East. It is as if these men were born for a special time to fulfill this prophecy. That is exactly what the wording of this passage implies. There will be almost enough adult men to make up this army from just the surplus males of military age that will exist in China and other Far-East nations by 2035 AD.

Some commentators think that this is an army of demons. In all cases, demons seek to possess bodies so a reasonable compromise is that two hundred million demons will come out of the pit and possess, and control this two hundred million-man army. This army will cross the Euphrates and come into the Middle East and the West. This army will kill one third of all men that survived the previous disasters on the earth .  By the time the prior judgments and this second woe is completed over half of the world's population will be dead.

Some commentators are hung up on the word horsemen thinking that all the men would have to be riding horses. Since these believe it is not possible to assemble two hundred million horses, they dredge up demons that look like men on horses. More likely, the wording simply means the leaders are mounted on horses or the men travel on something mobile (i.e. military vehicles).