Revelation 16:1-11

Chapter 16

Now we are going to see God's wrath being poured out on the earth. The seven vials are poured out with rapidity, one after the other.

Verse 1-2 "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. 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 worshiped his image."

The first judgment is that anyone who has taken the mark of the beast will find themselves covered with painful, noxious, disgusting sores. While it is very possible that God afflicts people in a miraculous way with this plague, it is also possible that He uses man's own evil against himself. It is fairly certain in everyone's mind at this point that the mark is probably a chip, although it was discussed that there may be some backward places where a tattoo is used. Knowing how the chip will work, and knowing that one of the goals of the Illuminati and probably antichrist is to depopulate the earth, and also knowing how the governments use their own people for experiments with things such as bio-chemical weapons, is it really a stretch to think that they will somehow implant a virus in the chip to be released at their command? This is just a speculative idea, but it is certainly within the realm of possibility. God would merely have to flip the switch Himself, if that were the case, and let man do his own dirty work. God often does just that, so while there is no proof that this is what will happen, it is a theory that is within the realm of possibility. The main object is that this mark will be the criteria by which people will be chosen to receive this plague.

Verse 3-7 "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. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. 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. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments."

The second and third angels pour out their vials which turn all the waters of the earth to blood. Everything in the waters die as a result. Some may speculate that this is not real blood, but it seems from what the angel says that indeed it is blood. Turning water into blood is probably not as scientifically hard a miracle as turning water into wine. The raw materials that make up the chemical composition of blood would probably be in abundance in the waters, so it would just be a matter of reorganizing them into the necessary components that make it blood, not to mention the myriad of creatures that live there that will die in the course of this.

Again we are given proof that angels have specific jobs over the elements of nature. There is an angel of the waters. He announces that the judgment is a righteous one, as they are reaping what they have sown. The world has shed the blood of the saints and prophets, so now they are given blood to drink, for this is their just punishment for their actions. Humans cannot live without water for very long, so this will be a terrifying thing for mankind. Water is already scarce in some places in the world and people are already forecasting that there will be a water shortage for the entire world. They have no idea how right they are.

Verse 8 -11 "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with the great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. 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. And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds."

These two judgments actually go hand in hand. The second is a result of the first. The fourth angel pours out his vial on the sun. Science has been studying the sun and solar flares for years. Hollywood has made multiple disaster movies about what would happen to the earth if the sun were to produce massive solar flares. The latest of these were out this past fall. In Knowing the earth is destroyed by a massive solar flare. In 2012, the neutrinos from the sun heat the earth's crust and melt the icecaps, causing another Noah's flood. (Obviously the last group is not reading their Bibles. Been there, done that. Knowing has the more accurate ending in that respect.) In actuality, science has been recording solar activity that does not bode well for earth. There is a good reason for this. The Scriptures seem to indicate that the sun will most likely go nova and collapse in on itself. Without going into all the science, in a nova a sun will contract slightly, expand massively, and then collapse down and burn out. Usually this takes a long time, but time is irrelevant to God. It appears Scripturally that going nova is exactly what the sun will do. In fact it will get seven times hotter than it presently is. Is. 30:26 "Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." The sun has to nova to create this situation and then does what it must do as a result - go out, plunging the earth into darkness, which conveniently is the next judgment. The fact that this will happen much more quickly that science says it can is not a problem for God.

It has been shown that at the Second Coming, (which occurred in chapter 14) all of Israel will turn to the Lord and He will heal them spiritually. He will bind the breach (the separation of Israel (or Ephraim) and Judah making them one nation again. Ezek. 37:15-19 "The word of the Lord came again unto me saying, Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand." So the passage in Isaiah speaking of the moon being as bright as the sun, and the sun seven times greater (and hotter), will occur at the time when the Lord binds the breach between the two nations of Israel, which we know by comparing Scriptures happens at the time of the Second Coming. Since this judgment falls right after that, it can be assumed these two passages (Isaiah and Revelation) are speaking of the same event, therefore pretty much confirming that the sun will go nova.

As to the scenario that the sun goes nova, we can now see the importance of what was discussed in Genesis. It was theorized that Satan is probably the angel of the sun. Satan is going to lose his kingdom at this time, and it will shortly be seen that he is going to be chained in darkness for 1000 years. Therefore he will be unable to do the job of tending the sun. It makes perfect sense that this (the nova) should happen if he is indeed the angel of the sun. Again it can be postulated that some of the things that are happening are not God forcibly doing things, but merely allowing things to take their natural course as punishment. Satan knows his time is up. He has tried to destroy the earth with everything he has thrown at it, but still he has not succeeded. It would make perfect sense that he would even destroy his own glory (so to speak) in a last ditch effort to take the earth out (as happened in Knowing). God would not have to precipitate this judgment, but merely give his permissive will to the action. In fact it says that power (permission) is given to "him" to "scorch men with fire". The "him" that the power is given to is the person who is in charge of the sun. The sun itself is not a "him" except in the form of the angel in charge of it. It would appear that the "him" is actually Satan, who is given permission (or the power) to blow himself up. He has to have permission to do this as he still answers to God. In the meanwhile, what has been occurring throughout these judgments is the restoration of the earth to its antediluvian state. The vapor canopy is probably in place by this time, thereby offering some protection from this solar phenomena. It will be very bad, but it will not destroy the planet as God has plans for mankind yet. The sun will be dead though. The next question to be answered is, how will the earth survive without the sun? That is easily answered. We are told in Isaiah 60:19-20 "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."  Later on in Revelation we will see that the nations of the world will walk in the light of New Jerusalem. There is only one way for this to be an actuality. The city of New Jerusalem, as odd as this sounds at the moment, will probably be a satellite in orbit around the earth. New Jerusalem is not a spiritual place that resides solely in another dimension (although it may reside there at the moment). It will be a physical place that will reside in this universe. It will be our home. Christ will be bringing it in tow with Him when He returns. God's Shekinah glory will shine out of it giving light on the earth, and presumably heating the earth also. As it is a physical place in this realm, and as it is huge, (1500 miles squared) it cannot easily sit upon the face of the earth, as it would stick out a ridiculous way from the surface. The only alternative is that it is a satellite city. This is not a problem for its inhabitants (us) as we will have the same type of bodies that Christ now has, and travel through space for us to go back and forth from here to there will not be an issue. This will be covered later in the chapters that speak about New Jerusalem.

While New Jerusalem may offer light during the millennium, for a while the earth, which is now formerly the kingdom of the beast, is allowed to be plunged into complete darkness. If one thinks of the sun as the ultimate throne of Satan, this is the seat upon which the plague of darkness is poured out. The sun goes out leaving the earth (his kingdom) in total blackness, which will no doubt chill the earth. Having been so superheated, it should allow the earth to maintain life for a while before things start getting too cold. Then God will no doubt allow New Jerusalem to show forth its light and allow Armageddon to take place.

What is amazing is that still with all of this, intense heat, total darkness, and in spite of the horrible pain they are suffering, people will continue to rebel against God, blaspheming His name and refusing to repent. It is also amazing that there are even people still alive, and yet God says that there will still be people around managing to survive all of this.