Probably no other topic in eschatology is more difficult to comprehend for Christians who take seriously the Word of God; both because it seems in the symbolic language so opaque, so difficult to grasp.  Many have been very fearful of this time.  I have talked with may people who have old me they didn‘t even want to study such a grotesque topic as the plagues.

It seems so unlike God.  What could be gained after probation has closed to inundate the world with such horrible judgments?  How are we to understand this?  What does it really tell us about the kingdom of God?  In what way increase our capacity to appreciate and to witness for Him?  These are the questions I would like to address tonight. 

I’ve tried to be especially organized tonight so that I could convey the thoughts that I think are pertinent.  I am going to address my remarks under 7 headings.  First of all I want to look at the symbolism of the 7 last plagues.  What do these symbols mean?  Why are they couched in such difficult terms to understand?  Why can’t God be more specific? 

Secondly the nature of these plagues, what are they really like?  How literal and how real are they?  Number three--three cause of these plagues.  Number four the significance of them in terms of our thinking and understanding.  That is what do they mean and what’s involved with them?   How shall we understand this as part of the great drama of God? 

Then I would like to look at the specific content of each one of these plagues to gather more specific meaning, and look in more detail at the sweep of the anticipated history of these plagues. 

The sixth point, the duration of the plagues.  How long will they last?  The last point would be the lessons to be derived. 

Seven words will summarize this topic:  Symbolism, Nature, Cause, Significance, Content, Duration, Lessons.

SYMBOLISM—The book of Revelation is full of symbols.  We are going to consider particularly Revelation 16.  This chapter describes the 7 plagues that shall be poured out on the earth just prior to the 2^nd coming of our Lord.  This is a very climatic hour in eschatology in last things.  This is right near the last things.  It is about as last as you can get.  It would seem that this stage should be about as clear as any stage, and yet we have to deal with very difficult symbols.  Why doesn’t God come right out and say that there is going to be a tremendous battle in Tokyo and Boston or wherever, and this is what it means?  Why couched in such difficult terms?  What can’t God give us specific events?  I have asked myself this question many times.  I think if you have read Revelation 16 lately, this is not something you want to read to your children.  It’s not like Zacheous climbing a tree that you can draw all kinds  of lessons from.  You really have to wrestle when you  read Revelation 16. 

God, why are you not more plain?  If we are going to face such a momentous time, why don’t you speak to us directly and plainly?  I suppose you have thought of that.  Any one who has wrestled with the book of Revelation would have to wonder why things are seem to be so hidden when the book is called Revelation.

I think that the answer resides in this fact:  God does not want us to simply pinpoint events.  He wants us to understand issues.  And furthermore, there is a certain sense in which God left history in flux.  Not pinning things down too pointedly, as if He were too specific it might lead to a conception of determinism that there is not much anyone can do, that this is the flow of event, therefore we will just sit back and watch it take place, but things are not quite that way when they are not  pinned down so literally.

Symbols always have a pointing function.  They point to some larger issue, some greater truth than the symbol itself.  It always goes beyond itself.  I think that one of the answers to this question, Why symbols?  Is God wants us to concentrate and consider issues.  It would be to easy to say, this and this is what is going to happen and never see the issue.  However if we discover the issues then I think we can say something very specific about the event, and I am going to do that tonight.  But I want to underscore the idea first of all, we cannot with geometric precision point out very specific events and say, “this is the way it’s going to be.”  We can get close, but there is always a margin of error as to the specificity of an event.  But I think that this is part of the mind of God that He wants us to see rather the issues that are involved.  Then when it takes place we can fit the events as they take place as say, “God really did know what He was talking about.”  When the events transpire we see a much larger significance because we have to look for the issues.  I think that is one of the main purposes of symbolism for these plagues. 

WHAT IS THEIR NATURE:  What are they like?  Are they really going to be specific physical events, something to touch people, that hurt, that you can feel?  We are given some information along this line. 

In Great Controversy 627-628 we are told they are going to similar  in character to the plagues of Egypt, and they were quite tangible.  “The plagues upon Egypt, when God  was about to deliver Israel were similar in character to those more terrible and extensive judgments that are to fall on the world just before the final deliverance  of God’s people.”  They are in a similar category as was the commotion and destruction of Jerusalem, only with Jerusalem they will be much worse.  “The Savior’s prophecy concerning the visitation upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment of which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow.  In the fate of the chosen city when they behold the doom of the world that has rejected God’s mercy and trampled upon His law.” GC 36

GC 614—“As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of  human passion (speaking of the time of the plagues), all the elements of strife will be let loose.  The whole world will be involved in a ruin more terrible than that which came upon Jerusalem of old.”

So we have one statement in GC 627-628, and we have two statements comparing them with Jerusalem.  In both of these statements the indications are that the plagues while similar will be much worse. 

This seems like a very horrible thing, something that would make us shudder.  We are told that this is an outpouring of the wrath of God.  For years most Christians have accepted that the cause of these plagues are some direct activity on the part of God. That is false!  The plagues are not from God, at least the first 6 are not. The 7^th is a direct activity of God, which we will discover in a little while.  But God is not the author of these plagues.  God was the author of the plagues of Egypt, but in that instance, God was able to teach people something.  He was able to make an impact upon their thinking.   In that day by challenging the gods that they worshipped, fly’s and frogs.  You can imagine the reaction these people would have when they had to sweep up their gods and throw them away.

We are told as a result of this God, was able to get to the thinking of the people of that day, and even though it seems very harsh, sometimes God has to speak with a loud voice so that He might reach people who are very dense.  But after probation is closed there could be no point of really changing anyone’s decision.  It would seem from the standpoint of reason there wouldn’t be that much point for God to send plagues, and we find that this is the case.

With respect to the plagues of Egypt, I read in GC 614,  “A single angel (from God) destroyed all the first born of the Egyptians and filled the land with mourning.”  Now, speaking of the plagues related to the final events,  “The same destructive power exercised by holy angels God’s commands (make a point) will be exercised by evil angels when He permits.  There are forces now ready and only waiting the divine permission to spread desolation everywhere.” 

We also find something similar in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem.  Where on the one hand the Egyptian plagues was by the direct activity of God because it had some salvation value.  Not so with the seven last plagues after the close of probation.  God permits, He allows Satan in a sense to do his thing.  GC 28  “The long suffering of God with Jerusalem only confirmed the Jews in their stubborn impenitence.  In their hatred and cruelty toward the disciples of Jesus, they rejected the last offer of mercy.  Then God withdrew his protection from them and removed his restraining power from Satan and his angels, and the nation was left to the control of the leader she had chosen.”  This was in respect to Jerusalem, which was a faint shadow of how it will be with the 7 last plagues. 

Reading further GC 35-36, regarding the destruction of Jerusalem and how God just stepped aside and let Satan do his thing.  “The Jews had forged their own fetters.  They had filled for themselves the cup vengeance.  In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation and in all the woes that followed them in their despersion, there were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown.  Says the prophet, “Oh Israel thou hast destroyed thy self, for thou has fallen by thine iniquity (Hosea 13).  Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God.  It is thus the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work.  By stubborn rejection of divine mercy the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will.   The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of  Satan’s vindictive power over those who yield to his control.  We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for His peace and protection which we enjoy.  It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan.  The disobedient and unthankful have great reason for gratitude God’s mercy and longsuffering in holding in check the cruel malignant power of the evil one.  But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restrain is removed.  God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression.  But he leaves the rejectors of his mercy to themselves to reap that which they have sowed.  Every ray of light rejected, every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every transgression of the law of God is a seed sown which yields its unfailing harvest.  The Spirit of God persistently resisted is at last withdrawn from the sinner and there is left no power to control the evil passion of the soul and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan.

The destruction of Jerusalem is a fearful and solemn warning to all who are trifling with the offers of divine grace and resisting the pleadings of divine mercy.  Never was their given a more decisive testimony to God’s hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty.”

Here we see God not as an active agent in this destruction, but stepping aside and letting Satan be the leader of those who have chosen him.  In a similar vein, let us consider GC 614 pertaining to these last plagues.  Notice the parallel to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was a faint shadow of the final destructive forces that will be let loosed when the angels no long hold these four winds. “When he leaves the sanctuary, darkness covers the inhabitants of the earth.  In that fearful time the righteous must live in the sight of a holy God without an intercessor.  The restrain which has been upon the wicked has been removed and Satan as entire control of the fully impenitent. God long suffering has ended.  The world has rejected his mercy, despised his love and trampled upon his law.  The wicked have passed the boundary of their probation.  The Spirit of God persistently resisted has been at last withdrawn.  Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one.  Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great final trouble.  As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose.  The whole world will be involved in a ruin more terrible than that which came upon Jerusalem of old.”

This quite clearly is not the work of God.  It is the work of Satan.  But note that the Biblical writers in so many passages of Scripture with a very strong sense of the sovereignty of God really do not distinguish between what God causes and what God allows.  To the Oriental and the Semitic mind, sensing the sovereignty of God, that which He allows, to them is just as much as that which He sends.  You will find throughout Scripture this interaction taking place. 

But here in GC we have some very clear statements as to the cause of the last plagues.  I want to state, these plagues are not sent by God.  When His restraining power is removed, Satan will then exercise the control over the elements like he never has before.  The world will then see a demonstration of what it would be like to live in his camp if he were allowed to run the world.

Now it might seem that even though God would allow this that it’s very strange.  Why would he allow this?  What is to be gained from all this?  You must consider the thrust of history to appreciate what is happening during this time.  As we consider the significance of these plagues you will recall that in previous studies we have spoken and considered the importance to Satan’s kingdom that he never allow God’s people to form. 

Satan claimed in the beginning, that if given the opportunity, he could run a better world.  And if God were to ever given a demonstration that He could have a people that could fully reflect His character, Satan then has had it. 

At the cross, his doom was sealed and he knew it.  But he goes down against the remnant we’re told in Rev. 12 with great wrath knowing that he has but a short time.  But also knowing that if he can keep God’s people from ever forming or becoming visible, so that God could say: “Here they are!”  “You say Satan that I can’t have them, Well here they are.”  If Satan can keep them from forming, then at least he can extend his time.  We might say in human language that his hide is at stake.

We have also learned from an earlier study that Christ’s coming has been delayed.  We are told that as early as 1883 we could have ere this been in the kingdom.  We would have to say that Satan has been successful.  And if we look throughout history to say, “Where has God people ever been formed,” we have to say that we cannot see them.  The church is still invisible.  Oh, they are there, and even when Elijah couldn’t see them, God said he had at least 7,000.  “You can’t see them but they are there.”  But Satan has always contended, “Where are your people?” 

God was never able to be successful with the Israelites.  What was designed to be a holy nation, almost from the start became a batch of transgressors who made some kind of a private club to keep the rest of the world out.  Even when Christ himself came and wanted to start a church, founded upon a small nucleous of disciples, the bodies of the disciples were hardly cold, the church had gone through a considerable apostasy.  Even Paul said that it was working in his day.  God has never had a church that was visible.  They have always been underground.  Revelation speaks about the church in the wilderness.  They were not seen.  They were in hiding.  Always the church that was visible was claimed to be a subject of Satan.  He could always say “Here are my people, Where are yours?”  Until God’s people can form and become visible so that the whole world can see what they are like, Satan can then prolong the controversy. 

But now we see in the time of the seven last plagues, it is at a time when the whole world has been brought to a decision.  As we have discussed before, the focal point of history will be over loyalty to God.  Will God have a people who will serve Him out of pure love?  I have described before how the 7^th day Sabbath, at a moment in history when the issues are clarified, becomes a symbol to that kind of loyalty, reflecting a very similar type of loyalty as the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Staked upon a thus saith the Lord, not upon any obvious manifestation why they should obey except that they trust God.  When the question was asked, Why should we eat of this tree and not the other?  The only answer was that God had spoken.  But what do they think of God.  Do they care enough about Him as a person that they would trust Him, that believe He would not take advantage of Him?

The same issue is brought up again over the Sabbath.  Why worship on one day and not another, especially when it is not religiously or politically expedient?  Is there anything in nature that we can discover that makes worship on the Sabbath day a healthier occupation?  Is the sun nicer on that day?  Does the rain provide more health?  Is sleep better on that day?  We can’t find anything in nature that indicates worship on one day is better than another, except that God has spoken. 

Here’s that issue of loyalty.  When it becomes a religious political issue and everyone has to take a stand, it will become quite obvious, quite patent to the universe where everyone stands, just as obvious as taking a peace of fruit from a tree.  Everyone can watch it.  It has become objectified, visibilized.  At a time in history when the world has had an opportunity to understand these issues, when God has a representation of those who can explain what history is all about, what God has been trying to accomplish in his world.  At time when everyone is brought to a decision and to take a stand, God is going to form His people.  And they will form.  God will say, “Here they are.”  They are described symbolically as the 144,000. These are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. 

It is possible to live a life of love under any circumstances as long as you have fellowship with Christ.  When that people form they will be a direct threat to the kingdom of  Satan and he must exterminate them.  His very well being demands that if that people stay alive and remain visible so that they can be inspected by the entire universe then his time has run out.

The significance of these plagues is that we can see in advance Satan’s last phrenetic, panikey effort to destroy the people of God.  As we study the next time, we will see the kind of revelation that this people presents to the universe as to the nature of the kingdom of God.  The kind of quality they can manifest in their lives at a time in earth’s history where there is every logical reason to rebel, to follow the expedient course.

We see then in the significance of these plagues Satan’s last desperate fling, to maintain his kingdom here on this earth, and to blot out the people of God so that they cannot maintain any kind of corporate entity under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.  Because if they are able to be maintained then Satan’s time has run out.

With this in mind, let us now look at the content of these plagues and consider the progression as a historical drama unfolding.  Because if we can see these deeper issues involved, we will get a tremendous appreciation for these plagues and trusting God we will not be so apprehensive as we face this kind of destruction in this earth’s history.  Even during this time, the people of God will have a mission to perform..

First of all I would like you to consider the fact that Satan must exterminate this people.  GC618, “As Satan influenced Esau to march against Jacob so he will stir up the wicked to destroy God’s people in the time of trouble.   As he accused Jacob, he will urge his accusations against the people of God.”  He will say, “This isn’t really a worthy people, they really belong to me, and I will show you that they do!”  Of course it just about goes wild trying to distract and harass them.   He mustn’t let them form.  His must destroy their faith in God, obliterate their significance as a holy people by any means possible.  “As he accused Jacob, he will urge his accusations against the people of God.  He numbers the world as his subjects.  But this little company who keep the commandments of God are resisting his supremacy.  If he could blot them from the earth, his triumph would be complete.” 

Thus we see his concern in attacking the people of God.  So often we think of these plagues as something completely discrepant from anything that’s ever happened before, and thus we put them in the realm of the weird, the strange, the far out.  But I would like to suggest to you that if we consider what is really happening, the plagues are not a completely different kind of experience from what was going on just before the close of probation.  That is, the only difference between the plagues and what they symbolize in the earth and what happens before probation closes is in degree not in kind.  GC 589-590 – “While appearing to the children of men as the great physician who can heal all of their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster,” you see this is beginning to sound like the plagues.  “until populace cities are reduced to ruin and desolation.  Even now he is at work (before probation is closed at the time she was writing) in accidents, and calamities by sea and by land (keep this in mind as we look closer at the content of these plagues) in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hail-storms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power.  He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow.  He imparts to the air a deadly taint., and thousands perish by the pestilence.  The visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous.  Destruction will be upon both man and beast.” 

These things will not be a complete break after probation closes.  That is why we will not know at what point probation has closed, because the process of history is continuing.  There is no complete break before the close of probation and after.  It is a continuous process except for the intensity and degree.  Satan is already at work by calamity and distortions, by controlling the elements in so far as God allows. 

5T 212—“Already a few drops of God’s wrath have fallen on the earth.”  Let me remind you again a definition of God’s wrath.  I told you before the Greek word used throughout Revelation to refer to God’s wrath, in fact in the new testament is “orge.” This is where we get the word “orgy.”  It means “wrath, anger, the feeling and expression of strong displeasure and hostility: this can range from petty human anger to the righteous anger of God toward sinful disobedience.” 

The Greek word refers to an experience in which the blood rushes through a person’s veins and stand out on their neck.  Their face becomes red and they just become furious.  Now God has allowed the prophets to apply this very human term to Him to indicate in the very strongest language His utter reactivity to sin.  What really is his wrath? 

Are we going to say that God has high blood pressure?  No!  We recognize the inadequacy of human language.  What is His wrath?  What could be the most or strangest thing that God could do?  We find the answer in Romans 1.  Three times we are told that in reaction to individuals who continued to sin and suppress the truth, that finally God to get to the place where he says: “Let them along.”  That was the wrath that Christ experienced.  “My God, My God, Why have you left me alone?”  “Why have you gone off and left me?”  Wrath is the hiding of God’s face, the recognition that there is nothing more that He can do.  That is unlike God in terms of His operations of mercy and love.  If you understand the significance of free will, if an individual gets to the place where they refuse to have any relationship with the Holy Spirit, if they sin against the Holy Spirit, if they say, “I will not have you,” God is grieved, but there comes a point in recognition of free choice where God must say, “Let them alone!”  “He that is, let him be.”

God’s wrath is not some kind of anger in a human fashion that god is imposing some kind of suffering.  Sin is not of a quality that God has to add something to it to make it worse.  There is nothing that can be added to sin to make it worse.  All God has to do is let go to seed, let it be seen for what it is. 

Those individual’s who describe God as superimposing something upon the final destruction of the sinner, simply have no appreciation, either of the character of God or the horrible horrendous nature of sin.  There is nothing that God could add to make it worse. The worst thing that He can do is to step aside, no longer restrain the wicked in their wickedness and let sin go to seed.  “Let them alone!”  That has always been God’s reaction to individuals who rejected Him.  God’s lament is, “What more could I have done than what I have done?”  In Isaiah the parable of the vineyard in which God laments “What more could I do?”  Finally God Himself has to say, “Let them alone!”  That’s God’s strange act.  This seems so unlike God, but if you understand the nature of sin, there is nothing else God can do. 

We are told that, “already a few drops of wrath have fallen upon the earth way back in Ellen White’s time.  What does that mean?  It means that sinners reject Him more and more, and that He leaves them alone, for that is their choice.  After probation is closed, the 7 last plagues will be poured out without mixture in the cup of His indignation.  That means that it will be forever to late to find shelter.

9T 11—“The Spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth.”  That’s God’s wrath again.  “Plagues and judgments are already falling upon the despisers of  the grace of God.  It is not something that is thrust upon the world after the close of probation, after everyone has finally made their choice.   It’s already happening.  “The calamities by land and sea, the unsettled state of society, the alarms of war are portentous.  They forecast approaching events of the greatest magnitude (greater in degree).”

Revelation 16 the description of the 7 last plagues is the particular way that Satan is going to operate in greater intensity once God gives him unlimited rope.  I want to emphasize again that in the continuous nature of the historical process, it’s not a difference in kind but in degree.  Satan acts as much as he can even now, but God restrains so he is limited.  As more and more individuals reject his grace and say, “God I want nothing more to do with you,” then Satan takes control of those impenitent.  When it gets to the place where everyone has made their choice, there is nothing further for God to do.  No more can be saved by the further operations of His grace.  He must let them alone.  Then Satan takes over and demonstrates to a much greater extent that he has ever been allowed to before.  Then it will be seen the full significance of the operation of his government. 

As we look at the plagues, I want to briefly give you the logic of how these plagues take place.  The first four plagues represent Satan’s efforts to destroy God’s people through the elements.  It appears, from the information we have, that the nature of the first four plagues is very similar to nuclear warfare. 

Many years ago EG White wrote about large scale warfare.  Speaking of the time after the close of probation and just before, she said: “Everything in the world is in an unsettled state.  The nations are angry and great preparations for war are being made.  Nation is plotting against nation and kingdom against kingdom.  The great day of God is hastening greatly.  But although the nations are mustering their forces for war and bloodshed, the command to the angels is still in force that they hold the four winds until the servants of God are sealed in their forehead.”  The nations here are chomping at the bit under the direction of Satan.”  Now Satan can use the instruments of warfare to cause destruction.  This is what he is itching to do.  But as yet the restraint is there holding back until the opportunity has been given for everyone to make their decision before these forces of destruction are let loose.

In the next statement, after these winds are let loose, “Then I saw the four angels cease to hold the four winds.  I saw famine, pestilence, and sword.  Nations rose against nation and the whole world was in confusion.”  “Four might angels held back the powers of this earth until the servants until the servants of God are sealed in their forehead.  The nations of the world are eager for conflict but they are held in check by the angels.  When this restraining power is removed there will come a time of trouble and anguish.  Deadly instruments of warfare will be invented.”  When this was written back in 1900 there was no recognition on the part of the author just what these would be.  “Vessels with their living cargo will be entombed in the great deep.  All who have not the Spirit of Truth will unite under the leadership of satanic agencies, but they are to be kept under control until the time shall come for the great battle of Armageddon (which is formed under the 6^th plague).  Only a moment of time as it were yet remains, but while already nation is rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, there is not now a general engagement.  As yet the four winds are held until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads.  Then the powers of earth will marshal their forces for the last great struggle. 

THE PLAGUES:

        Re 16:1 ¶ And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.  (This is a symbolic expression if you understand the Sanctuary services, judgments were quite often indicated by some kind of libation or pouring out of some kind of liquid in symbolic fashion to indicate some special significant judgment.) 

Plague 1) Sores:  Verse 2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image. (Why should be only on those when Satan is trying to destroy God’s people?  For the various reason that Satan is trying destroy them but God protects them.  In the process he ends up wiping out a share of his own, but he is certainly willing to make that sacrifice if he can get at God’s people.  But in this last fling, the world is going to see the fact that God is going watch over these people.  He will not allow Satan to destroy them.  There would be no point in it.  The Greek word for “sore” refers to a puffy, superating, festering type of ulcer that erupts on the skin and peels away.  This descriptive of the effect on people who were exposed to an atomic bomb. ) 

Plague 2) Seas become as blood:  3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. (You can imagine in terms of an atomic fallout that everything that was alive in the vicinity of this activity would die, slain bodies from one end of the area to the other.  All the life in the sea would die.  This is very similar to what happened in Jerusalem when blood flowed like water.  You can see the significance of this symbolism.)  Note:  It could also be a red tide organism as mentioned in the book. 

Plague 3) Fresh water becomes as blood: Verse  4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. (It even goes into the tributaries.  Even though the wars are on the larger seas, it affects the fresh waters inland.)  This could also be a red tide.

5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. 

6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.

(This sounds so horrible that an interjection is made here.  God, why are you letting this happen?  But when this is happening the angelic beings would be saying, “God this is a horrible thing that has to happen, but we fully exonerate your actions in letting Satan do his thing.  This is part of the final revelation of God.  This is one of the great demonstrations of what it would really be like to live in a kingdom completely dominated by Satan.  Recognizing the larger thrust that is made by the people who witness this is, as awful as it seems, the heavenly one cries out, “God we honor you in what you are doing.  It seems very horrible.  The angelic beings recognize that God is just in allowing Satan this kind of power.) 

Plague 4) Sun scorches earth:  Verse 8 ¶ And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. 

9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. (Did they turn to God now?  Did they recognize like the angelic beings that this was all just?  No! They cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues.  They did not repent and give Him glory.  Of course not.  They became more like they were.  This becomes the occasion of demonstrating to the universe what these people are really like.  They will stand right in the face of God and curse Him.  Such is the nature of sin and sinners.)

With these first four vial or judgments Satan is trying through the elements to exterminate the people of God.  But what has he accomplished?  He almost wipes out his own kingdom.  We are told that these plagues are not universal else everyone would be wiped out.  In fact God has to protect even Satan’s kingdom, otherwise everyone would be wiped out.  Satan in a frenzy goes after everyone around, attacking the people of God, but they are protected.  So in the process he decimates a good part of his own kingdom.

We have these descriptions of these sores upon people, of the bloodshed, of the commotion that takes place in the waters, living cargoes of the deep entombed through this warfare.  Now the scorching rays of the sun combine with the atomic fallout intensify the suffering terribly.

I am not insisting that this is some kind of atomic warfare.  All I’m saying is that it certainly fits the language.  I don’t think we should try to be dogmatic about specific events.  I am more concerned with the larger issues, but the information we have been given suggests that Satan is trying to wipe out the people of God through the elements.  Bt he isn’t able to do it. 

But he is accomplishing one thing.  He is infuriating his own people so that they would curse God.  Now if he can channelize this anger of his own people, and turn them against God’s people, so that eventually they would march upon them, then he would be able to accomplish the same purpose. 

Since he can‘t do it through the elements, plagues 5 and 6 describe how he is going to attempt to destroy the people of God through the frenzy his people.   Plagues 1-4 through the elements, Plagues 5-6 through the activity of his own people. 

Plague 5) Darkness: Verse 10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, 

11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. 

(The fifth plague describes this darkness.

Plague 6) Armageddon:  Verse 12 ¶ And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. 

13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 

14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. 

15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. 

16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. 

Plague 7 Hail: Verse 17 ¶ And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. 

18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. 

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. 

20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. 

21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.