13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. 17 And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the colour of fire and of sapphire and of sulphur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulphur came out of their mouths. 18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulphur coming out of their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.
20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
There is yet another aspect to this that we must note. Sin, when it really comes to fruition, is completely outwith man's control. The following words, spoken by one of the greatest of modern secular prophets, Winston S. Churchill: 'It is probable - nay, certain - that among the means which will next time be at their disposal will be agencies and processes of destruction, wholesale, unlimited and perhaps, once unleashed, uncontrollable. Mankind has never been in this position before. Without having improved appreciably in virtue, or en- joying wiser guidance, it has got into its hands for the first time tools by which it can unfail- ingly accomplish its own destruction. That is the point in human destinies to which all the glories and toils of men have at last led them. They would do well to pause and ponder upon their new responsibilities. Death stands at attention, obedient, expectant, ready to serve, ready to shear away the people en masse; ready, if called upon, to pulverise, without hope of repair, what is left of civilisation.' Do we see the implications of these words? Evil is some- thing that straightway gets out of man's control. Jesus spoke the simple truth when He said, 'He that committeth sin is the servant of sin.' Sin is no longer in a man's power to undo. He starts something over which he can no longer exercise any authority. Who shall deny that this is what we are now beginning to read on the frightened and apprehensive faces of our scien- tists and technologists, as the dawning realisation grips them that now, at the last, they have gone too far?