"From the greatness of the crisis and the solemnity of the warning, these emissaries must be creatures of awesome power. Yet they seem unaccountably crude, uncouth, and unseemly. They surprise us. “Frogs!” we exclaim, “heralds of battle? Ambassadors to kings? Impossible! Absurd! Ridiculous!” The crisis is the greatest in the annals of war. It is referred to in scripture, as well as in our text, as “the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” It is portrayed as a World War, a Universal Conflict. And yet — to assemble the militant nations — three slimy batrachian monsters! What are these “questionable shapes,” these disgusting amphibia, from the swamps and mud of dried-up Euphrates? John describes them as “unclean spirits,” they are “demons,” or dead men. What we see in the vision is three ghostly emissaries, one out of the mouth of each of the confederates, the dragon, the wild beast, and the false prophet — gigantic shadowy frogs, croaking night prowlers, cold-blooded reptiles dwelling in marshes, quagmires, and stagnant waters, with their spotted skin, their sprawling limbs, their agile leap, their dismal croakings filling the night with noise. They are as politicians, these masqueraders, at home in the slimy pool, in the gooey mud, in the air or on solid ground; noisome, repulsive, abhorrent. Of what are these cheap orators, these uncanny imposters the emblem?"
Much more in the text:
“SPIRIT AND WORD” — that is the issue in this battle at Armageddon. “Three unclean spirits coming out of the mouth.” There is a time when God does more than just forgive our sins and pour down blessings upon us. The hour comes when He contends with the very spirit or spirits that motivate us and we find ourselves drawn into conflict — into the greatest conflict of our lives! The battle is not just “against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). We are to be CLEANSED “from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (II Cor. 7:1). Thus, when God sets His hand to purify and perfect us it is no local skirmish, but erupts into a full-fledged WORLD WAR involving every vestige of the flesh and every stronghold of spirit as God in us goes about His work of “the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor. 10:4-5). In John’s vision three unclean spirits emerge, touching upon the defilement and slavery of man in all areas of body, soul, and spirit. It reaches into all the expressions of society — religious, political, and economical. The frogs may croak all night but their influence will end with the Light of God’s New Day, when “the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.”