Revelation 15

Revelation 15:1-8

THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES Revelation 15:1 to Revelation 16:21IN presenting chapters fifteen and sixteen, of the Book of Revelation we deal with natural divisions and discuss the seven last plagues. The opening sentences of chapter fifteen are employed by way of introduction to the presentation of the wonderful panorama of events. John says, “And I saw another sign in Heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy Name? for Thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest” (Revelation 15:1-4). Two or three things are set forth in this introduction. First of all, that these seven plagues, which are to be poured out by these seven angels, express God’s judgment against sin. Again, this figure of the glassy sea mingled with fire, with the victors over the beast and his image, standing beside it, having the harps of God, is a scene which was strikingly symbolized when Moses and his kindred stood on the banks of the Red Sea and beheld the Egyptians overwhelmed by it. And as Miriam there, led in the song describing all praise to God, so here, when God executes judgment against His enemies—the oppressors of His people —the Church militant will sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, in memory of that first victory; and the song of the Lamb, in gratitude for the last and greatest triumph, and will say, “Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy Name? for Thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest”. After these things John says, “The Temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in Heaven was opened: “And the seven angels came out of the Temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles. “And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever”. These, then, were priest-angels, but no longer engaged in the office of mediation, but rather that of judgment. And lo, the voice to the seven angels is, “Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth”.Let us study the significance of these seven last plagues, their severity, and their issues.THEIR Phillips Brooks, speaking from the second verse of the fifteenth chapter of Revelation, says, “Many people find great pleasure in tracing out elaborate analogies between its prophecies and certain particular events in the world’s career. ‘Here, ’ they cry, pointing to some particular event of contemporary history, ‘do you now see that this is what these chapters mean?’ ‘Yes,’ we may generally answer, ‘they very possibly do mean that, but they mean so much more besides that. They mean that, and all other events in which the same universal and eternal causes were at work. These special examples fall in under them, but do not certainly exhaust their application. They are much larger and include much more.’” All of which is true. I doubt if any interpreter has ever dreamed the full meaning of Revelation, and the utmost that we shall attempt in the exposition of these chapters, is a comparison of Scripture with Scripture, and the drawing of certain practical lessons that ought to be deduced from the more evident of these prophecies.Speaking, therefore, of the significance of these seven plagues, we call your attention to three things.First, Their number is suggestive. “The seven last plagues”.

As suggested in the previous discourse, seven is one of the numbers employed in the Word of God to express completeness. That it is used here, in that sense, is put beyond dispute by the expression “the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God”. God has often poured out something of His wrath upon the earth, a single vial at this point, and another at that, but let sinners fear the day when the seven vials shall be opened. Do you remember how in Leviticus, after God had set before His people the iniquity of idolatry, and had pleaded with them to turn from their evil way to His service, He concluded, “And if ye shall despise My statutes, or if your soul abhor My judgments, so that ye will not do all My commandments, but that ye break My covenant:“I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, * * “And I will set My face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies; they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. “If ye will not yet for all this hearken unto Me, then 1 will punish you seven times more for your sins. “And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: “And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. “And if ye walk contrary unto Me, * * I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins”. Again and again in that 26th chapter of Leviticus, He threatens them with seven times, as if that were the completed punishment.You will remember that when He wanted Joshua to overthrow the city of Jericho, He said, “Ye shall compass the city seven times, * * and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him” (Joshua 6:4-5).This Book of the Apocalypse has been called the Book of the Sevens. There are seven visions, seven Spirits of God, seven candlesticks, the seven stars, seven lamps of fire, seven seals, seven horns and seven eyes of the Lamb, seven angels with seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven heads of the beast with seven crowns upon the heads, the seven plagues, seven vials, seven mountains, and seven regencies. Jacob Seiss says, “All this is because the Apocalypse is the Book of the fulness of everything of which it treats.” There is presented here the consummation of Divine dispensation, and as Jericho went down before seven blasts from Israel’s trumpets, so the world will finish in the throes consequent upon the opening of the seven vials of the wrath of a long-suffering God.The character of these plagues is significant. The first vial caused a noisesome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and which worshiped his image; the second, ‘turned the sea into clotted blood, as of dead men, and every living soul, even the things which were in the sea died.’ And the third, touched the fountain of waters, the very source from which they flowed, and changed it unto blood so that those who had taken the blood of saints and Prophets had nought else now to drink than blood. The fourth, affected the sun so that it scorched men with fire. The fifth, brought the beast and his kingdom into darkness, so that they gnawed their tongues with pain.

The sixth, dried up the great river Euphrates and cut off the highway for kings. And the seventh, charged the air with the thunder bolts of death, and shook the earth with such an earthquake as it has never seen since man came upon it, dividing cities, submerging islands and mangling men, bringing in a condition of confusion before the terror of which nothing was heard than the blasphemy of the followers of the beast.

Now we confess to you that we see no way of interpreting these symbols save to receive them for what the Word says. If the plagues of Egypt were real, why need we spiritualize these prophecies and make them symbolize some event other than those which are described?Beloved, hold steadily to the Word of God. There was a time when Egypt was smitten with every one of these plagues, because she oppressed God’s people; there was a grievous sore upon man and beast; their waters were turned into blood; the sun scorched them with exceeding heat; darkness lay over all the land; the sea itself dried up; Satan sent his evil spirit among the people to distemper their minds and harden their hearts; and the very air was filled with thunder and lightnings. If we accept that record as real, why not accept this as imminent, and look for the last of it to be fulfilled. One of the dangerous tendencies of the time is touching this very question of refusing to take God’s Word as it says. Why should we expect less colossal things to characterize the end of the age?

Why should we believe that God whelmed Egypt with plagues because they had oppressed His people and shall deal less gently with Satan himself, and his accessories, seeing that they have been oppressors from the beginning? Opposers of God, they are high-handed rebels; and when the leader goes down, who can expect less than that his followers will share his fate; even as the Egyptians drowned, in the sea that brought Pharaoh to his death.

This, as I understand it, is the picture in detail, of the very event that will bring an end to the three and a half years reign of the dragon, and the beast and the false prophet. And when you stop to think upon it, there is no difficulty in God’s accomplishing every whit of these prophecies of His Word. That He can smite man and beast with noisome and grievous sores, no student of past history will call into dispute; that He can change the very waters of the sea and the rivers into clotted blood is either true or else the Pentateuch is not dependable. That the sun can easily scorch with fire every man from the Atlantic to the Pacific, many are now ready to testify. You continue last week’s atmosphere for a few months and men would die from the face of the earth, or else the living gnaw their tongues from pain. And that God can dry up the Euphrates, let His touch upon the Red Sea witness; the earthquake of the past, the storms that have filled the air: the hail stones that have smitten men, all of these are only the earnest of the powers that are at the command of our God, when He shall will to loose them and make them His batteries against the great rebel of this Book, and all his followers.Have you ever thought upon theSEVERITY OF THESE PLAGUES They fall on all wicked men. “There fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image. “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. “And the seventh angel poured out his vial * * “And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great”. It seems impossible to think of these prophecies as having been fulfilled in any French Revolution, in any of the naval battles of the past; they are yet to come.When the trumpets were sounded only a part of the earth was involved, hence we believe that they referred to past periods and events; but here the whole world of wicked men, —hence we believe this is yet to come. Reflect upon the prophecies of the Old and New Testament teachings concerning these judgments. When Solomon saw it afar, he said, “The wicked shall he cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it” (Proverbs 2:22). “The wicked shall not be unpunished ** the expectation of the wicked is wrath” (Proverbs 11:21; Proverbs 11:23). Of the wicked, Job wrote, “The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath” (Job 21:30). Daniel, writing of the same event to which John here sets his pen, said, “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:10). And yet it need not be so; the time of judgment is not on; the angels who hold the vials of God’s wrath in their hands have not yet begun their work of pouring them upon the earth; the voice of mercy is still heard, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto * * our God, for He mil abundantly pardon”.Again, these plagues involve animal life and inanimate nature.

And every living thing in the sea will die, and even the sea itself, with the rivers, and even the fountains of waters be putrid. The beasts of the earth shall be involved with men, gnawing their tongues also for pain.

God has His reasons for this. When man is to be removed from the seat of action, it will be a mercy toward all domestic things to take them with him, and a necessity to remove beast, fish and fowl, to bring upon the earth the famine that shall conquer the ungrateful, the rebellious, and teach them, by judgment, what they refused to learn in grace, namely, that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. We often hear it said, and with good reason, that Nature is indifferent to the sufferings of man. The springtime cares nothing for the sorrow that smites your heart; the sun shines just as brightly when darkness is over all your soul; the birds do not hush their song because men are going on in sin and meeting its consequent agonies, for nature has no heart; but while nature is indifferent to man’s suffering, man is mightily moved by nature’s sorrows. When you smite the sea, the rivers, and turn them into blood, you have smitten man himself; when you have parched the earth, so that its fruits perish, you cut off all possible sustenance, and strike unspeakable agony into the soul which looks upon its parching surface. When you loose the thunders of heaven and stir up the fires of the earth so that storm and earthquake shall mightily shake it from center to circumference, you fill the mind with horror, and every heart with a shriek.

And yet, when God, by His sure Word of prophecy, speaks of suffering that beggars description, man often treats it with little concern. The Final Judgment is a subject not unknown to jest; and sin itself is laughed at and gaily indulged in as if it were not written that “its end is death.” Even the Christian world speaks too glibly of the separation before the great white throne; and the wicked man treats that subject as if it were a poor superstition.

And yet! And yet! God’s Word remains; God’s warnings are in our ears; God’s prophecies live; and the impenitent hear their passionate pleadings.Peter refers to this disposition of man to despise the judgment, and says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, “Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat”? (2 Peter 3:9-12). And now a few words onTHE ISSUES of the seven last plagues.They express God’s judgment of sin. Every judgment of the past has in some measure voiced God’s feeling toward sin; but the fulness of His wrath will be reserved for the last day, and expressed in the out-pouring of the seven plagues. Oh, men! let me beg of you not to treat sin lightly, as if it were an indifferent thing! Paul in his Epistle to the Romans writes, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. * * For the wages of sin is death”. When speaking to the Thessalonians, in describing the antichrist himself, that consummation of all iniquity, he can find no stronger term than “that man of sin * * the son of perdition”. While John in his First Epistle declares, “He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning”.The second issue of the seven plagues will emphasize the blessedness of the saved.

Let us call your attention to the fact that right in the midst of these judgments, and after the sixth is completed, just when the seventh and last is ready to break, these words are interjected, “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments”. The reference is unquestionably to the appearance of the Lord, and to the catching away of His saints from this scene of trouble and misery, up to that blessed scene of fellowship with Himself. This is indeed to be the crowning event of Christ’s Church, touching which Paul wrote to the Thessalonians.“But I would not hove you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. “For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain * * “Shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Another issue of that hour will be the demonstration of God’s power and final purpose. I think that Satan is often filled with the conceit that he is going to conquer this world once for all. I find that bad men generally believe that doctrine; and even some good men have accepted it as their political philosophy. Probably a majority of the mayors of the great civic centers of this country are today preaching from platform and through the press the necessity of evil, the certainty of its continuance, and the advisability of compromise with it, on the ground that it is better to stand in with the powers that be. But if this Scripture means anything, it means that these evil powers are coming to an end. And when the mountains and valleys of MeGiddo shall again run red, with the blood of battles, Christ alone will command the forces that will that day finish with iniquity, and overthrow its every advocate; yea, even its monster-hearted Satan, himself.

It means that from that time on, God is going to reign. Ah, how little, unbelieving men have dreamed His power; how poorly have they imagined His resources and strength!