What was Jesus telling John?

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulphur yellow; and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed-by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.

(Revelation 9:14-18 NKJV)

What was Jesus telling John in this vision? Is this a warning for our generation? Or is this simply an allegorical bit of mumbo-jumbo, safe to ignore and open to ridicule?

Might we be wise to heed Jesus on this one? Is this a prophetic picture of what is brewing near the Euphrates River today, ditto, Iran? Is the tension on the Korean peninsula part of this equation?

“Fire, smoke and brimstone” sounds like thermo-nuclear war, doesn’t it!