We have now come to Revelation 16 commentary and bible study about the Seven Last Plagues.
Please click here for the previous study on Revelation chapter 15: Seven Angels and Seven Last Plagues.
Revelation 16 Commentary: Seven Last Plagues
Revelation 16:1, 2: Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.” So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.
Never has the Lord been forced to give a command that He dislikes so much to give as this one! He “is longsuffering toward us not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He said long ago, “I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore turn and live” (Ezekiel 18:32).
If He could have His way He would save everybody: “God our Savior . . . desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:3, 4). “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2). The only reason anyone will ever suffer the seven last plagues is that he has resisted and rejected the salvation that the Lord has already given him, because “God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).
But painful as this work is to God, He has no choice but to let it come. “The winepress is full, the vats overflow—for their wickedness is great” (Joel 3:13).
It will not be “the blood of the grape” that flows from this great winepress, but the blood of wickedness. Such a terrible sight has not yet been seen on this earth. These literal plagues have not yet fallen, because they are declared to be the “last plagues.” They cannot fall until the world has been warned, and the work of salvation has closed. And that work cannot close so long as there is one human soul somewhere who will yet respond to the Good News of the grace of Christ.
So long as the Holy Spirit has been working in the earth, judgments and disasters have brought many people to think and to repent. It has been true up until this time, as Isaiah says, that “when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9).
But before the last plagues can be poured out, the Holy Spirit will have been driven finally from the earth by the rejection of the wicked. It will then be demonstrated that troubles will not bring to repentance those who have rejected God’s goodness, for only “the goodness of God leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4). Revelation says that Satan will then have full control over the inhabitants of the earth. “They did not repent” (Revelation 16:9).
It is during the pouring out of these plagues that the warnings against worshiping the beast and his image and receiving his mark will be fulfilled, and the rejectors of God’s grace will “have no rest day or night” (Revelation 14:10, 11). These plagues will bring the downfall of Babylon in “one day,” which in harmony with the year-day principle of interpreting Bible prophecy, could mean one year of literal time.
“What would this world be like if it were not for the restraining power of the Holy Spirit. Multitudes do not realize that they owe all their security and happiness under what measure of law and order prevails, to the blessed ministry of God’s Spirit in the earth. During the time of the plagues, all will see clearly that when men give themselves up to the control of Satan, they will themselves produce a hell here on earth.
The plague of grievous sores falls on those who have yielded to pressure to receive the “mark of the beast,” either sincerely by having the mark in their foreheads, or insincerely by having it in their hands. But to His loyal people, the Lord gives this assurance: “You shall not be afraid of the . . . pestilence that walks in darkness. … A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you . . . neither shall any plague come near your dwelling” (Psalm 91:5-10).
Revelation 16:3-7: The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying:
“You are righteous, O Lord,
The One who is and who was and who is to be,
Because You have judged these things.
For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets,
And You have given them blood to drink,
For it is their just due.”
And I heard another from the altar saying, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.”
The second and third plagues are similar; one falling on the sea, and the other on the rivers and fountains of waters, turning all of them to blood. We are not to understand that these plagues are completely universal, else no living thing on earth could survive. But the news will travel world-wide. The wicked will have passed a decree to shed the blood of God’s people (see Revelation 13:15).
Although they have not been permitted actually to kill them, their desire to do so has made them guilty before God of the sin of murder (see 1 John 3:5). They have chosen to re-activate the unjust persecutions of the Dark Ages. Because they have wanted to drink the blood of God’s people, the heavenly judgment decides that it is appropriate that they should now be given blood to drink.
But note God’s promise to His people: “The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, their tongues fail for thirst. I the Lord will hear them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys” (Isaiah 41:1, 7, 18). The child of God “will dwell on high; his place of defence will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water will be sure” (Isaiah 33:16).
Revelation 16:8, 9: Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.
In the days of Elijah, Jezebel led Israel to worship Baal, the sun-god of the Phoenicians. In justice, God permitted the sun to scorch Israel for three and a half years. A very slight change in the balance of the atmosphere can permit the sun now to afflict men with such heat, for scientists warn us that our materialistic lifestyle already threatens to deplete the ozone layer.
If any of the wicked would humble their hearts and repent under this or any plague, they would be saved; but the fact is that they will not and therefore cannot repent. Their only response is to blaspheme the name of God. People have chosen to lock themselves in to follow the way of the great rebel and his evil angels.
It would be a good thing for us to pause just here, and each one to inquire of himself: When trouble comes to me, what is my first reaction? Do I feel inclined to murmur, to resent it, and to blaspheme God? By the way in which we react to the setbacks of our daily life now we may be choosing our place during the time of the plagues.
If we believe the gospel, we will remember that since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), even our present troubles do not separate us from His care. He is concerned when even a little bird falls to the ground (Matthew 10:29). Those who choose to reject this truth that “God is love” place themselves in that group who will blaspheme God during the final plagues.
Revelation 16:10, 11: Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. And they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.
Those who suffer under the fifth plague are apparently the same people who have suffered under the first plague, in that the plague of darkness adds to the misery of those suffering still from their sores. And still the strange report is added that they “did not repent of their deeds.” The throne of the beast” (see Revelation 13:2) is the city which many people consider is the “holy city.”
Revelation 16:12-16: Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. “Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.” And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.
The wrath of God does not stem from any petty jealousy. The world has rejected truth and chosen falsehood; it has rebelled against the very principles of life and righteousness. And now, during the plagues, the wicked prove to everyone that they have passed the boundary of rebellion, and will not in the least repent.
Under the sixth plague, they now prove themselves to be as foolish as they are also rebellious. Without exception, they trust “the spirits of demons, performing signs [miracles].” To be deceived by error is just as much a plague as to be smitten with sores.
During this time only those who have watched and kept their “garments,” that is, who have felt the need of Christ to “cover” them, will be secure against the threefold deceptions that come from the “beast,” or Romanism, from the “false prophet,” or apostate Protestantism which will join with Romanism, and from the “dragon,” the symbol of paganism, or the popular religion of evil spirits.
All will have tried to unite in one great world religion. Deception led them there; deception will hold them there. Revelation here discloses to us the future of ecumenism when it is fully developed.
The glue which will finally bind together Romanism, apostate Protestantism, and non-Christian religions, will be the influence of these evil spirits who are angels who fell from heaven with Satan. They have deceived people by pretending to be the spirits of their dead friends and loved ones.
The people of God who have believed the testimony of the Bible have refused to receive these deceptions, clinging to the scriptural declaration that “the dead know nothing” (See Ecclesiastes 9:10; Psalm 146:3, 4; Job 14:12-22; John 11:11-14).
Satan will finally become so expert in his arts of deception that he will give a false “holy spirit” to the religious bodies which have rejected the truth. As men have rejected the plain testimony of the Bible, they have cast off their only defence against those pretensions of evil spirits. “As spiritualism more closely imitates the nominal Christianity of the day, it has greater power to deceive and ensnare.
Satan himself is converted, after the modern order of things. He will appear in the character of an angel of light. Through the agency of Spiritualism, miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and many undeniable wonders will be performed. And as the spirits will profess faith in the Bible, and manifest respect for the institutions of the church, their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine power.”
While imagining that they are being blessed with a marvellous outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit, these rejectors of truth will in reality be gathered together for the last great battle against God Himself. It is of these deceived people that Jesus spoke in His Sermon on the Mount: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you'” (Matthew 7:22, 23).
Although the lost have been rebellious against the principles of God’s truth, they have not previously dared to try actually to fight against God. They have known such a battle would be hopeless for them. But now these “spirits of demons . . . gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty,… the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.” Imagine their shock of surprise when they finally realize what they have been gathered to!
Why is the “place” called Armageddon? We can learn what it means by considering the meaning of the word, because the Hebrew people had a very striking experience that stamped its meaning on their minds for more than a thousand years.
They immediately thought of a famous battle where angels fought from heaven, showering great hailstones on the enemies of God and of His people Israel. God’s people had gathered to fight for their lives against King Sisera and all his hosts in the battlefield of Megiddo in the land of Canaan.
God Himself went to battle for His people: “The kings came and fought, then the kings of Canaan fought in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo. . . . They fought from the heavens; the stars from their courses fought against Sisera. The torrent of Kishon swept them away” (Judges 5:19-21). So marvelous was the deliverance of Israel that fathers told the story to their children for generations.
This decisive battle against Sisera at Megiddo is a type of the final battle of this world’s history. Someone may say today, “I don’t want to give my heart to follow the Lord Jesus in obedience, but one thing I will never do, I will never fight against God!” But unless that person decides to follow Christ, he will at last join in war against Him. He will be “gathered,” propelled, motivated, under the deception of the sixth plague when Satan will present his lying wonders. There is no place to stand in between, no place of “non-alignment” in the great battle between Christ and Satan. The war is on and it must be fought to its end.
The Bible teaches that we are saved by faith, not works. But this faith is a positive heart response to the love of God revealed at the cross where Jesus died. It “works through love” and involves the entire life of the believer (see Galatians 5:6; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21). A negative response to God’s love is what the Bible calls “unbelief.” Such unbelief is not merely a passive, neutral, or “not involved” attitude.
No one can be neutral where God’s love is revealed. Unbelief is an active rejection of God’s grace. The Battle of Armageddon is, therefore, the Bible’s way of speaking of the final fruit of an active rejection of grace. The veneer is at last peeled off and man’s basic “enmity against God” comes out in the open (see Romans 8:7). It is the spirit of Satan in the final war against Christ, but now embodied fully in humanity.
Already we see evidence of these deceptions of Satan who is presently manifesting his deceptive power through the New Age movement. As frogs jump in all directions, and one cannot tell where they will jump next, so deceptions appear here and there all over the earth.
Men do not realize that the forces which are driving the nations to Armageddon proceed from the false religions of the world. What Satan wants is to enlist every human being on earth to join with him in his hopeless war against God. Until a person rejects the truth that God sends him, he cannot be fully tricked by the lies that Satan sends him; but once he finally rejects truth, he has no defense against them.
According to Revelation, the nations of the world will pass a decree authorizing the people to put the saints to death after a certain time. But Christ, as always, identifies Himself with His persecuted people. He accepts this declaration of war against His people as a declaration of war against Himself. When mystic Babylon passes this decree, she will have made her last tragic mistake. She will be doomed forever.
The drying up of the “river Euphrates” also made the Hebrew people think of another epic event in their history. It too has meaning for us in these last days. When the kingdom of Babylon stood in its glory and pride, the Lord sent His agent, King Cyrus, to overthrow it. But Babylon was a city with tremendous walls and battlements. How was Cyrus to get in?
God found a way to help King Cyrus to capture the city. Cyrus dried up the waters of the Euphrates River which flowed through the city of Babylon, turning the waters out of their channel into a lake nearby. Then his soldiers marched through under the brass gates of the city and captured it (See Isaiah 44:27 to 45:13). So will the power of mystic Babylon’s defences “dry up.” The city built on lies will collapse.
We will each one stand on one side or the other in that final battle. Judas Iscariot never imagined that his unbelief would lead him at last to make the awful mistake of betraying Christ into the hands of His enemies. He began by thinking he would only play with sin, and stop before he went too far. But he was swept away by a tide of evil until he did the terrible deed that has earned for him undying shame.
Those who join to fight against God in the battle of Armageddon will repeat the sin of Judas and the Jewish leaders who crucified Christ. Thus the whole world will judge themselves, and pass sentence on themselves. When Christ comes the second time, He will catch them in the very act of open, defiant rebellion.
Revelation 16:17-21: Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth.
Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And great hail from heaven fell upon men, every hailstone about the weight of a talent. And men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.
This plague is universal. The vial of wrath is “poured out. . . into the air,” and all who breathe will partake of it except those who are protected by the Lord. The battle of Armageddon is cut short by the appearance of the King of kings with the armies of heaven. The nations “will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them; for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings” (Revelation 17:14).
When Jesus hung on the cross, the wicked people who had crucified Him were about to fill up their cup of iniquity. When they had followed their sinful passions to the end of the way and murdered the Son of God, Jesus cried out, “It is finished.” Now the wicked inhabitants of the earth follow their footsteps, and fill up their iniquity. The voice from the throne says, “It is done.”
When one mighty angel approached the tomb of Christ on the morning of the resurrection, there was a great earthquake. Imagine the earthquake when all the angels of heaven come to this earth! The great cities of the earth such as London, Paris, New York, Tokyo will fall. Tall buildings topple over like a pile of blocks pushed by a child. The Old Testament prophet says, “The Lord has opened His armory, and has brought forth the weapons of His indignation” (Jeremiah 50:25).
A “talent” is said to weigh about 50 pounds (nearly 23 kilograms). Although these frightfully heavy hailstones fall all over the earth, not one of the wicked will repent. They still “blasphemed God.”
Many Scriptures describe these same last plagues. “The Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and the earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel” (Joel 3:16).
He has warned the world of the coming of this plague. “I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plummet; the hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place” (Isaiah 28:17).
The same earthquake that shakes the cities breaks open the graves. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Those who had part in crucifying Christ, such as Caiaphas, must be given a special resurrection that they may see Christ coming in glory, for He promised them, “Hereafter you will see the Son of man . . . coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64).
Caiaphas complained, “He has spoken blasphemy,” but he must be among those who will “see Him” and mourn because of Him together with those “who pierced Him” (Revelation 1:7), Caiaphas and those who pierced the Saviour will die three times—once when they died long ago, a second time after their special resurrection, and the third and final time in the “second death” at the end of the thousand years (see chapter 20, verse 14).
But many at that time will be brought to life to experience everlasting happiness. “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”
Together with those who have honored the Lord, who have been living on the earth during the time of the seven last plagues, they will be “caught up … in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,” and be with Him forever (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17). Thus will God’s people be delivered. No plagues will come near their dwellings; the promise is that not a hair of their heads will perish.
A certain rich man in London wanted to help a young man who had not yet found Christ as his Saviour. One evening he said to the young man, “When Jesus comes, I will give you all my money, my house, and my fancy car!”
“Will you?” asked the delighted boy.
But that night as the boy lay in his bed thinking about the offer, he asked himself, “What good will all the money, the house, and the car do me on the day when Jesus comes?” He knelt by his bed, and gave his heart to Christ.
Before Jesus comes, all the wealth of this world will lose its value. “In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each for himself to worship, to the moles and bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the ragged rocks, from the terror of the Lord, and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth terribly” (Isaiah 2:20, 21).
The Revelation of Jesus Christ has given us a preview of that day.
For a detailed, well researched and easy to read commentary on the book of Revelation I urge to buy a copy of Revelation of Jesus Christ: Commentary on the Book of Revelation This verse-by-verse commentary offers a text-focused and Christ-centered approach to the book of Revelation.
Appropriate for personal study and as a college and seminary text, this volume provides both in-depth notes and lay-oriented exposition for use by scholars, students, pastors, and laypeople. An ever-increasing interest in the prophecies of the Apocalypse has resulted in deeper understandings which are introduced in this updated edition.
Ranko Stefanovic is professor of New Testament at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Andrews University and is a well-loved teacher, popular speaker, and author of scholarly articles.
Please click here for the next study on Revelation 17: Great Harlot
Revelation 17 Commentary Video: Seven Last Plagues
Below is a Revelation bible study by Pastor Keneth Cox
Related Posts:
Revelation 18 Commentary: The Fall of Babylon Like A Millstone
Revelation 19 Commentary: Marriage of The Lamb
Revelation 20 Commentary: Satan Bound In Chains (The Millennium)
Revelation 21 Commentary: New Jerusalem
Please share this revelation 16 bible study and commentary with friends and family.
