Family, I will be at the LG Leaders Retreat over the weekend and so will likely not send out any emails for a couple days.
Revelation 16:8-11 – The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9 They 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.
10 The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in agony 11 and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.
“The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9 They 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.” Let’s recall that all these bowls are poured out one after another. One of the ways we know that is that after all the fresh water is polluted and undrinkable (becomes blood) then there is only so long before everybody, or most of everybody who remains, will begin to die off. Now in earlier times, even at the time the prophecies of Revelation were given, the fact that there was no fresh water to drink would cause them to think that all life on earth (yes, all animals, they can’t drink either) would begin to die within a few days. However now we that in the End Times knowledge will increase know (Daniel 12:4). As we live in the latter days, and maybe the final days, we know how many drinks, and many types of drink, we have bottled. That may keep people alive awhile longer than the ancients had thought possible. However, it is also possible that everything that is made of water will have the water that it is made of also turn to blood. We don’t know yet if that will happen. The times of these prophecies are later than our times and so the people who live then will have the knowledge as these prophecies unfold. Their knowledge will be greater as they live through it as our knowledge has increased because we live in modern times.
The first plague caused excruciating boils to torture anyone who had the mark of the beast (the overwhelming majority of all people on earth at that time). The second plague turned the sea to the blood of a dead man. The third plague did the same as the second plague only to all fresh water. Now the populace of the world is suffering with huge boils, the sea is rotting and stinking and they have no fresh water to drink and what was fresh water is also rotting and stinking. The whole world quite literally stinks. The people who are now hoping it will rain upon their diseased bodies to ease the pain and that they may capture the rain and drink the water are thirsty and afraid of dying. Now the fourth plague is poured out and the sun becomes blazing hot and scorches the people, animals, and plants of the world. Looking to the sky that they had hoped would bring relief via rain they received the opposite. What they received was the sun to change and to scorch their already suffering flesh. They are thirsty and no rains comes instead the sun becomes scorching hot and feels like fire as it touches them. Of course the animals and plants will die and rot. The sea had become a stench of blood and rotting animals and now the stench of land is filled with the stench of rotting animals and plants. The inhabitants of the world are suffering from the putrefying flesh that is now covered with boils, is sun burnt and they are beginning to die of thirst. Surely they cry out hoping for relief. They want the sun to stop burning them. But though they want mercy, they will not repent of their sins and receive the mercy of God. These are people whose hearts are so hard that they could not respond (Ephesians 4:18). They need help but they would not, they could not (because of their hard hearts) respond to God or even seek Him. With all they have seen over the seven years, the reality of God is undeniable, but even so, they hardened their hearts ever more and shook their fists of God. Talk about your horrors!
“The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in agony.” They cried out hoping the searing sun would relent and then they were plunged into darkness. Previously the Egyptians had to suffer a plague of darkness for three days (Exodus 10:21-23). The Word of God describes that darkness as so complete and so pervasive that it was a darkness that could be felt. It was darkness, it was absence of light. They could not see each other or even their hand before their face. They suffered in darkness with their boils and their thirst.
How ironic that they who have refused the Lord, and continue to refuse the Lord, are covered with tortuous boils on their sunburned flesh. These people are getting a taste of hell that God has already said was the fate of those who refuse His mercy and grace. Mark 9:49 records Jesus as describing those who go to hell suffering with worms that never stop eating them and where they burn forever. That is the final and unchangeable position where all those who now harden their hearts are headed. The irony of the prophetic nature of the fate that they are marching towards. They rejected the Light of the world (Jesus the Son) and so spiritually they walked in darkness. Now physically, they called for the burning sun to stop and now they are in darkness. But it is not the physical darkness that brings the spiritual darkness but the spiritual darkness that causes them to now be in the physical darkness. Once again we see that the physical is a shadow of the spiritual.
Even after all they have been gone through and after them now being in complete darkness, they would not repent. Family it is obvious for all to see that these people are receiving what they have demanded their whole life. The folly of the question of how a good and loving God could allow all this to happen is exposed. It is not God that brought evil into the world but people. There is no evil in God and He does no tempt man to do evil (James 1:13). Man does evil out because his heart is evil (Jeremiah 17:9). His heart became evil when he committed physical and spiritual suicide in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). Jesus came to free man from the bondage of evil. Most men reject freedom from Jesus and choose to remain in their bondage, because they like it! So the question is not how can God allow evil but why mankind insists on living in it and propagating it!
Family, we are not such as these. We are born again, born from above, solely by the will and might and love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is why we shall never suffer the fate of the unredeemed that is describes in Revelation. While these last horrible plagues are falling upon mankind, we shall not be on earth in the midst of the horror. God will have brought us all home long before then. We shall see it, with a perfected God view in our minds and hearts from the safety and comfort of our home with the Lord in heaven. Now that is something to get excited and shout about! Praise the Lord!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.