8The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. 9They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.
10The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony 11and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.
12The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. 13Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.
Dig Deeper
I watched an amazing show called Lockdown the other night. The show documents life and situations inside the worst prisons in the United States. The episode that I was watching chronicled what is considered to be the toughest and worst women’s prison in the country. The conditions in that prison are so horrible due to the erratic and violent behavior of the women that it is considered by most to be the most dangerous prison in all of the U.S., including the men’s prisons. Yet, rather than be humbled by the horrible circumstances, the women refuse to repent of their violent and anti-social behavior. They have, in fact, become more hardened, more rebellious, and more dangerous.
John continues to describe the covenant curses that will be poured out on Israel through the vehicle of the Roman army, but despite these horrific circumstances, he continues to point out that those rebellious towards God will continue in their refusal to repent. Rather than being humbled by these judgments, however, they seemingly become more hardened and firm in their rebellion towards God.
16:8-9 - The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun. The fourth trumpet resulted in darkness as did the ninth Egyptian plague. Now the heat of the sun is intensified so that it would scorch people with fire. This is another reversal of the basic covenantal blessing that Israel would be shielded from the heat of the sun by the glory cloud (Ex. 13:21-22; Ps. 91:1-6; Jer. 17:7-8; Rev. 7:15-17). The fact that the sun was given this power to scorch, emphasizes the sovereignty of God. Those being judged, however, had cursed the name of God, and refused to submit to His authority. They had rebuffed the One who had control over these plagues just as Pharaoh had (Ex. 7:13, 23; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 12, 34-35; 10:20, 27: 11:10; 14:8), and they refused to repent and glorify Him. Israel, in rejecting God, had become like Egypt, and now, would be destroyed just as Egypt had been.
16:10-11 - Most of the judgments of Revelation were poured out on Israel, but the kingdoms who joined Israel against the Church would also come under condemnation. Thus, the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the Beast. At the same time that the sun’s heat is scorching those who worship the Beast; the lights are turned out on his kingdom as it was plunged into darkness, a common Biblical symbol for political turmoil and the fall of rulers (Isa. 13:9-10; Amos 8:9; Ezek. 32:7-8). It is likely that this plague corresponds to the wars, revolutions, riots, and convulsions that ravaged the Roman Empire after Nero committed suicide in June 68 AD. The historian Tacitus wrote that "The whole city presented a frightful caricature of its normal self: fighting and casualties at one point, baths and restaurants at another, here the spilling of blood and the litter of dead bodies." These Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. A unique aspect of the bowl plagues is that all come virtually at once with little "breathing space" between them. They did not come one at a time as they did in Egypt, but the men here are still cursing God on account of the sores they received during the first plague. They are poured out so quickly that the people are still suffering from the plagues that have preceded it. Despite all of this, they refused to repent for what they had done.
16:12 - The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. As we saw in chapter 9, the Euphrates was the river on Israel’s northern front from which invading armies would attack. The image of it drying comes in part from a strategy that Cyrus the Persian used by temporarily turning the river off its course, enabling his army to march up the riverbed into the City of Babylon, capturing it. The primary imagery, though, is that of the drying up of the Red Sea (Ex. 14:21-22) and the Jordan River (Josh. 3:9-17; 4:22-24). There is another instance of tragic irony here in that Israel has become the enemy that must be conquered rather than being delivered by the drying up of the river. Phillip Carrington observes, in The Meaning of the Revelation, that these armies coming from the Euphrates "surely represents nothing but the return of Titus to besiege Jerusalem with further reinforcements." This happened, of course, during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
16:13-14 - Then John sees three evil spirits that come out of the mouth of the Dragon, out of the mouth of the Beast, and out of the mouth of the False Prophet. This plague is connected with the second of the Egyptian plagues except that these frogs are really evil spirits that perform miraculous signs. David Chilton, says in Days of Vengeance, that "there is a multiple emphasis on the Dragon (imitated by his cohorts) throwing things from his mouth (cf. 12:15-16; 13:5-6; contrast 1:16; 11:5; 19:15, 21) and the triple repetition of mouth here serves also as another point of contact with the sixth trumpet (9:17-19). These evil spirits go out from Satan (Dragon), the Roman government (Beast), and the leaders of Israel (False Prophet), to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle. They have all worked in different ways to incite the armies of the world to join together in war against God. What they don’t realize is that they are really going to be used for God’s purposes, not their own (See 1 Ki. 22:19-22; 2 Thess. 2:7-12 for similar concepts). All of this will happen on the great day of God Almighty, which is a Biblical term for a day of judgment (Isa. 13:6, 9; Joel 2:1-2, 11, 31; Amos 5:18-20; Zeph. 1:14-18). This is the day of execution that Jesus had foretold in one of His parables (Matt. 22:7).
Devotional Thought
The first reaction to reading sections like these is to become saddened, yet these are very encouraging passages for the Christian. Despite all the terrible tribulations that would soon be coming for the first-century Christians, they could be assured that God was in control and that they would enter the age to come regardless of what might happen in the present age. Do you have the same kind of faith in God that these early Christians were being called to? Despite seemingly stark circumstances, do you believe that God will protect and deliver you?
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