REVELATION 16
The temple is seen here as the source of judgment; there is no ark of the covenant as in chapter 11. We have come to God’s last dealing with open rebellion and apostasy before setting it all aside by “the thunder of his power”. The seven angels here “came out of the temple, clothed in pure bright linen, and [p. 170] girded about the breasts with golden girdles”. It suggests what is morally suitable to God, and divine righteousness. Everything in the kingdom of the beast stands in contrast to this, and therefore it must come under judgment.
When the first angel poured out his bowl on the earth, “there came an [p. 171] evil and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast, and those who worshipped its image”. I think, in a certain sense, the wickedness of man will become its own judgment. We can see it in the government of God even now; a man’s snare becomes his scourge. It is so even with the people of God; if you or I have any special snare, and do not maintain practical self-judgment as to it, most surely will that snare become our scourge. “Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their way, and be filled with their own devices” (Proverbs 1: 31). I have no doubt that principle will work out in the public ways of God, so that what man chooses, and for the sake of which he gives up truth and righteousness and God, will become his scourge. Man will be made to suffer from the very things which his heart has run after. This has a present solemn voice. The working of man’s will becomes the source of his misery. When men give up all truth and righteousness and knowledge of God they will plunge themselves into inconceivable misery.
The principles which will lead to this are working today. “The mystery of lawlessness already works”. It is the ideal of many today to do what they like without restraint. A train passed through this town with a banner flying from one of the windows, “No God, no master”. The result of the working of that principle will be untold distress. It will bring “an evil and grievous sore upon the men”. Instead of man being satisfied and brought to rest and happiness by having his own way, he will find it to be the most terrible thing that ever happened. It is a delusion to suppose that there will be any true happiness under the beast and the antichrist. I do not believe that a single expectation that men will entertain when they receive these great agents of Satan will ever be realized. No doubt it will be declared by many voices, as it is already by some, that the great barrier to human happiness and liberty is the restraint of God’s will and of divine institutions. And men will believe this, only to find themselves under a tyranny truly awful, and in such miseries as the world has never known before.
“And the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea; and it became blood, as of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea. And the third poured out his bowl on the rivers, and on the fountains of waters; and they became blood”. “The sea” would seem to be a figure of the widespread general state of men; “the rivers and the fountains of waters” would represent things which would be normally beneficial to men, or sources of natural refreshment. Whatever is of God is healthful to men. His government in the world is beneficial; so is His law, so far as its obligations are recognized; also His ordering in regard of marriage and natural relationships. Such things as benevolence, kindness, friendship, are favourable to man’s happiness. I am not speaking of conversion, but of the course of man’s life on earth. The ordering of things under righteous government is good for men. Whatever tends to maintain the integrity of what God has instituted or recognizes in [p. 172] natural relationships, or in connection with man’s responsibility to his neighbour, is a “fountain of water”. “The work of the law written in their hearts” leads to the practice of things which are favourable to men as creatures here.
But under “the lawless one” the wicked spirit of idolatry will return, and seven other spirits worse than himself, and they will enter in, and dwell, “and the last condition of that man becomes worse than the first” (Matthew 12: 43 - 45). In such conditions everything that is in itself wholesome and of God will be corrupted. When God is shut out of everything the result will be that man will corrupt everything until it becomes loathsome to himself. I think we can sometimes see examples of such a state of things even now. We see men give themselves up to what they call pleasure in every kind of corrupt way, and it often issues in everything becoming so loathsome to them that a suicide’s grave is the end of it.
We are familiar with 2 Timothy 3, but perhaps we have not sufficiently weighed it as an anticipation of the time when the rivers and fountains of waters will be turned into blood. It shews us how far things have gone in that direction even now. We ought to read it very slowly so as to realize the terribleness of it. “But this know, that in the last days difficult times shall be there; for men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, evil speakers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, profane, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, of unsubdued passions, savage, having no love for what is good, traitors, headlong, of vain pretensions, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; having a form of piety but denying the power of it”.
[p. 173] Remember that these words describe a condition of things within the christian profession before the rapture of the Church! If things come to this before the rapture, what will they be under the reign of the beast? We may be sure that everything that has been of God, and for man’s true comfort as His creature, will be turned into moral death. I would not deny that in the kingdom of the beast what is scientific and mechanical, and on the line of human genius in a material way, may be developed to an immense degree. But everything that has in it what is really healthful for man will be turned into death. Even today every scientific discovery and every mechanical invention at once finds its highest development for the purpose of destruction. That shews what man is morally. We ought to have our eyes open to these things.
There are two solemn responses to the action of the third angel. “The angel of the waters” speaks first. “Thou art righteous, who art and wast, the holy one, that thou hast judged so; for they have poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; they are worthy”. It is of interest to know that there is such a person as “the angel of the waters” — one, I suppose, who has administrative charge of the things which are naturally a refreshment and comfort to man. He cannot see this terrible retribution without commenting on the righteousness of it. God has given providential rivers and fountains of waters to men, but He has also given spiritual rivers and fountains of waters in His “saints and prophets”. But men had literally turned them into blood by slaying them, and in righteous retribution they are caused to drink what is morally death. The word “worthy” occurs in this book in various connections, but in none more solemn than this one — “they are worthy”.
Then the altar speaks. We have seen the altar several times in this book, but we have never heard it before! It utters a solemn “Yea”. The altar reminds us of Christ in death, of God glorified about sin, so that a way of approach might be opened up to Him for those who had been sinful men. But now the altar says, “Yea, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments”. The death of Christ has proved that sin is intolerable to God, and if in His mercy to men it has been dealt with sacrificially in that death, that very fact necessitates that His righteous judgment must fall on the impenitent.
“And the fourth poured out his bowl on the sun; and it was given to it to burn men with fire”. The sun represents the supreme authority in the sphere which is in view, and in this case that sphere is the kingdom of the beast. I understand it to mean that authority will become so burdensome and oppressive that men will be, as it were, scorched by it. “And the fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast; and its kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues with distress”. What a fearful result of the setting up of the ten-kingdomed league of nations, and the unifying of everything under a great imperial head! (See chapter 17: 12, 13). The kingdom of the beast will be darkened. I doubt whether there will be any true philanthropy in the kingdom of the beast. When government is of Satanic origin and character it will not be marked by either righteousness or mercy. Orphanages and hospitals, and other institutions that tend to ameliorate the [p. 175] miseries of men, are really the product of the influence of Christianity.
Of Christ it is said, “He will do justice to the afflicted of the people; he will save the children of the needy, and will break in pieces the oppressor.... He will have compassion on the poor and needy, and will save the souls of the needy: he will redeem their souls from oppression and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight” (Psalm 72:2; Psalm 72:4; Psalm 72:12-14). But the antichrist, though there is a certain imitation of Christ in his having “two horns like to a lamb”, speaks “as a dragon”. It is said of him that “it cast down the truth to the ground” (Daniel 8: 12); “he shall destroy marvellously ... and shall destroy the mighty ones, and the people of the saints. And through his cunning shall he cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he will magnify himself in his heart” (Daniel 8: 24, 25). “Whoso acknowledgeth him will he increase with glory; and he shall cause them to rule over the many, and shall divide the land to them for a reward” (Daniel 11: 39). The character of the beast is sufficiently indicated by the fact that as a political power it has “great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the rest with its feet” (Daniel 7: 7), and viewed in regard to the saints it makes war with them and kills them; it will be a time of unrelenting persecution.
The kingdom of the beast will be visited by divine wrath so that men will be burnt up with great heat, and will gnaw their tongues with distress, but there will be no movement of repentance. They will blaspheme the name of God — the God of the heaven. When God approaches man in grace, as He is doing today, man despises it; when God acts in judgment [p. 176] he blasphemes. It is well to note that. They will not then deny that there is a God, but in hardened enmity they will blaspheme Him. They will throw the blame of their misery upon God, just as men are ready to blame God today for the miseries that are the outcome of their own lawlessness. It is very solemn to consider the possibility that millions of people living on the earth now may suffer these things.
“And the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates; and its water was dried up, that the way of the kings from the rising of the sun might be prepared”. The Euphrates has been the dividing line between the western world and the eastern. That barrier or frontier will be removed, in view of the universal gathering of kings “to the place called in Hebrew, Armagedon”. We can already see signs of its removal. The coming of Japan into world politics, and the awakening of the east generally, are facts obvious to all.
But when the sixth bowl is poured out it will be followed by a combined effort on the part of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet to muster the world’s forces for the last great conflict — the last desperate attempt to hold the earth so that Christ the Heir may not have it for His inheritance. The false prophet inspiring the apostate Jews, the beast stirring up the combined forces of the Roman earth, and Gog and Magog rolling up from the north like a mighty flood; a vast league of nations combined with one thought and purpose to destroy whatever is of God, that men as energized from the abyss may possess the earth. It will be a grand concentration of men in open and defiant rebellion against God.
[p. 177] They will stretch out their hand against God, and strengthen themselves against the Almighty (Job 15: 25, 26), but it will be for their own destruction. Instrumentally they will be gathered by Satanic agency, and they will shew the state of their own hearts in being thus gathered, but God will be behind it all, gathering them for judgment. The Old Testament prophets speak of this from different points of view.
Just at this point there is a little parenthesis. A Voice speaks for any who have ears to hear. It is the voice of Jesus. “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches and keeps his garments, that he may not walk naked, and that they may not see his shame”. He is coming, all unexpected by the world. But there will be those who will have the faith and testimony of Jesus, and the watchful saint will keep his garments. In the world there will be nothing seen but naked flesh — flesh shewing its true character openly. But in the presence of such a terrible exposure the saint is blessed if he watches and keeps his garments so that nothing that is of the flesh comes into evidence. It is a word as much for us as it will be for them.
“And the seventh poured out his bowl on the air”. The whole atmosphere of the world will take a character that is the result of divine judgment. There is a moral atmosphere of which Satan is prince now, for he is “the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2: 2). That is the atmosphere which is breathed by the sons of disobedience; it is their life breath. They do “what the flesh and the thoughts willed to do”, and this is the evidence that they are by nature [p. 178] children of wrath. This will have worked out in full result when the seventh bowl is poured out, and it will come under the manifest wrath of God. “And there came out a great voice from the temple of the heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done”. The lawlessness of six thousand years has reached its last hour; the long-suspended judgment — the time of dealing with all evil — has come. It is a solemn contrast to the “It is finished” of the cross.
Then “there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth”; a greater overturning than has ever been known. “The great city” was divided. Two cities are spoken of in this book as “great”; one is Jerusalem, when it becomes spiritually Sodom and Egypt (Revelation 11: 8), and the other is Babylon, where Gentile apostasy is consummated. God will divide the great city into three parts, preparatory to her utter destruction. It indicates that God will destroy the unity of what man has attempted to build up, just as He did at Babel. His judgment will fall on all human attempts at unity, whether in the religious or the political sphere.
“And the cities of the nations fell”. Cities are political and commercial centres; their fall would be indicative of a collapse of everything on which the system of the present world rests — its government, the credit which is the basis of its commerce, and all its social order.
Then “great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath”. The next two chapters dwell with much detail on this special object of divine vengeance.