Revelation CHAPTER 16

2024 - (This note was made on Isaiah 47 in 2024, and I have "pasted it forward" because of it's relevance to this chapter.) 

As I read Isaiah 47 today, it occurs to me that possibly the Babylon spoken of in Revelation is just a modern day version of the Babylon that his here.  What if future Babylon is about fortune tellers, necromancers, witchcraft, and all the other things that go with this?  What if, once again, this is the direction that world powers take, instead of turning to God.  Don't we see it everywhere?  The claims that Taylor Swift - an iconic figure to so many young girls and even grown women that ought to know better - is a Satan worshiper.  What about all the garbage conspiracy theories about all the Satan worship in Hollywood, and sacrificing babies and human trafficking for their Satanic rituals and orgies?  And just how much of that is seeping into the congressional sewers of Washington DC, not to mention Europe and the rest of the world.  Imagine a worldwide system of divination with its own high priest, worshiping the SoP, sacrificing to Satan...Wow.  This may be the best theory yet on what the coming Babylon is really about.  I religion 180 degrees out from doing what it ought to be doing, and sanctioned/supported/required by the world government.  Oh my...Putting in a reference back to this note in the appropriate chapter of Revelation.2023 - This later inserted note:  The temple tent tabernacle represent God's relationship with Israel from the flight from Egypt to the time of Revelation.  Tabernacle/tent in the desert, Old Temple up to 70 AD.  End times Temple from Ezekiel.  Three separate places on earth.  One structure in heaven. 

2023 - This whole sanctuary, temple, tent, tabernacle thing is confusing.  In 15, we had the sanctuary of the tent of witness.  The Greek word is naos, which is used of THE temple on earth many times.  Jesus uses this word to talk about the Temple in Jerusalem.  The phrasing in Rev 15:5 is "The Temple of the tabernacle of testimony".  Three t's.  Surely this means something important.  Perhaps the idea is that this was three things on earth but they are all combined in heaven.  It is in heaven, we know that from the end of 15:5.  So I think clearly these three are just one in heaven.  Here is an interesting thing.  Temple is nominative singular masculine, tabernacle is genitive singular feminine, and testimony is genitive singular neuter.  So that covers all three.  Temple is the nominative, so it is the primary now, and tabernacle and testimony are characteristics.  Try reading it as the testimony's tabernacle's temple.  I don't know enough Greek to know if testimony is genitive to temple or tabernacle.  I don't know if a genitive can connect either to another genitive or a nominative or only to a nominative.  I am assuming it is the second here.  It is ONE place though, ONE STRUCTURE if you will as it exists in heaven, and at the very end of 15 it filled with smoke such that no one can enter it.  I think "no one" means no person, no angel, no nothing.  "No one" is a single word in Greek, and in this case might better be translated none.  None can enter.

2022 - Remember, we are right up against the very end of the 42 months.  I think weeks at most, not months, and possibly this wrath is poured out over a few hours only.  But these are condensed. 

The first verse of 16:

"Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God."" [Rev 16:1 ESV]

The voice is from the Temple, not from the sanctuary.  The sanctuary is filled with smoke, because God is there.  So this voice is from other than God.  In the "sign", Christ is not mentioned - either as a man or a lamb - but this is clearly the same scene that we saw earlier when Christ was present as the Lamb, it is just later.  I see no reason to suppose that the Lamb has left the scene, so surely he is still there and not in the Temple.  BUT, if it is the Temple of the Millennial, then it could well be the voice of the Lamb saying to pour it out. 

2023 - This 2022 paragraph is wrong.  It most certainly IS God saying to pour out the bowls, because ONLY God is in that place.  It must be His voice. 

These are for all those who worshiped the beast.

First bowl-loathsome sores.

2022 - Here is the description:

"So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image." [Rev 16:2 ESV]

We ought to ask whether we can link up these bowls with the two reapers in Chapter 14?  Are we seeing in 16 an elucidation of the results of the reaping in 14, or did all that end - as we thought at the time - BEFORE the wrath begins?  Back in 14:16, it is past tense:  "the earth was reaped".  Implication is that this first angel completely finished his reaping before the second angel began.  And in 14:20, the result - past tense again - of the second angels reaping is "and blood flowed".    I can't remember if I tried to distinguish between those reaped by the first angel and then the second.  One on a cloud, one from the temple.  They seem consecutive.  Why the cloud first and then the Temple?  I note informationally that in 15 we see angels from the Tabernacle first, and then the Temple.  Are cloud and tabernacle somehow connected?  Certainly God led the Israelites through the desert as a cloud in the daytime.  So we could be seeing the two covenants again - IF the Temple in view in heaven is Ezekiel's Temple.  The Tabernacle and cloud represent those under the abrogated law, and the Temple represents the Church Age.  It cannot represent the Millennial, because the reaping is taking place before that even starts.  It is Ezekiel's Temple because Christ is missing from its furnishings.  It is heavenly, only, because it does not come down until the Millennial?  Or the earthly version is not built until the Jews are home to build it in the Millennial?

One add'l thing.  This specifically applied to those who bore the mark of the beast.  Remember that the rapture was way back there, remember that the children of the woman are being protected for 42 months.  So these sores do not affect the living breathing Jews who are now very near surviving t/gt and entering alive into the Millennial - after they are judged?

2024-This language leaves open the possibility that even these bowl judgments could partially overlap the seals.  We know the MoL must appear before the rapture, we know a time of great persecution will arise before the rapture.  BUT, and this might be a really good marker, it never says that the church will suffer this kind of anger from God, this "wrath" he is pouring out.  I think this tells us that the chronology has moved well along, and we are far into the last 42 months when the bowls are poured out.

2024 - ALL these are plagues on the earth.  This is no shift of scene or emphasis after the fourth as has been the pattern previously.  And at the sixth, Armageddon is coming, at the end of the 70th week, at the beginning of the Millennial.  Babylon is on the East side of the Euphrates.  The kings could be pretty local actually.

Second, sea turns to blood as of a dead man.  Everything in the sea dies.

2022 - No mention of the mark.  The sea is not longer a source of food the those who have survived to this point.  Life in salt water is extinguished.  All of it.

Third, Rivers and springs turn to blood.  Angel says it is just that they drink blood since they shed to blood of prophets.

2022 - No mention of the mark.  The 2nd and 3rd affect the earth.  No more fresh water to drink at all.  Perhaps, since the sun was darkened early in the process, crops will no longer grow on earth.  So no edible plants would grow.  In fact, pretty much all plants would have died.  The earth must be cooling significantly also with the sun down to 1/3 power.  They are freezing in the dark, surviving on fish and water.  The first three cover them with harmful painful sores, and take away the fish and water.  The dark and the cold remain.  So what happens next?

Fourth, scorching heat.  Makes men curse God, not repent. 

2022 - They have been wishing they could warm up, and now they do.  But they do not enjoy it.  It is a scorching, damaging, wounding, killing heat.  The sun is again able to warm them...and they must hide from it.  These plagues are truly wrathful.  These are punishment to fit the crime of rejecting God  in favor of a mark that they believed at the time would keep them eating and drinking, healthy, warm and dry.  The reality is just the opposite of that.

Fifth, darkness, and gnawing pain, while the sores also continue.  Looks like these stack, they are not one and done.

2022 - Perhaps this means the last of the light goes out.  Total darkness.  The beast can no longer even pretend to administrate and provide for the people with the mark.  The kingdom the beast built is in ruins, and no pretense can be made.  God is defeated it.  Undone it.

2023 - This bowl is poured out on the throne of the beast.  That may not be exactly IN the earthly temple but it would be close by.  We know that Satan's kingdom has been removed from him but somehow the beast is trying to keep it all together.  So darkness, I expect similar to that in the plague against Egypt, is poured out.  Consuming darkness.  Darkness that "eats" any light.  They can't see their hands in front of their faces and there is no light that will change that.  Terrifying darkness. 

2023- Sores, water turns to blood, darkness.  These three cover four of the bowls and connect directly with the plagues of Egypt.  The fourth bowl - a scorching sun - did not happen in Egypt.  The sixth bowl, with the water drying up, did not happen in Egypt.  The seventh bowl, an unprecedented earthquake - I should say ANOTHER unprecedented quake since we previously saw an  unprecedented in Rev, and these monster hailstones.  There was hail in Egypt, but it was burning hail, not like this.  So many of these plagues on the whole earth correspond to the plagues on Egypt alone, but not all of them do.  Some were reserved just for the time of the end.

2025 - Note in vs 10 that they are still in pain, still have sores, and I would suggest that there is nothing to drink but blood.  So the effects of each bowl continue into the rest of the bowls.  If here, then why not in the seals and trumpets also.

Sixth, Euphrates dries up to prepare the way of the kings from the east. 

2022 - We saw in vs 11 that all those left on earth - I think besides the protected Jews - curse God over the wrath and refuse to repent, refuse to submit.  In the darkness, the beasts last and only strategy is to blame the hidden Jews and their God for all that is occurring, and to muster an army to fight back.  This, I believe, is building toward Armageddon.  It seems that the "Kings of the East" back the beast, and the door for them is opened by this sixth bowl.  It probably looks to the beast and those Kings as if God has finally made a tactical error, and they rush to exploit it.

Vss 13, 14 surely seem to corroborate this, as below...

Three unclean frog spirits from the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.  One from each.

2023 - One from the Dragon itself.  One each from beast and false prophet, both of whom I believe are men.  Men in Satan's employ and control, men to whom he "delegated" power - or in fact he possessed them and controlled them through these frogs. 

These do signs that all the world sees, and kings of the earth are gathered for the battle of the great day of God Almighty.

They are gathered to Armageddon.

What are these frog spirits?  Perhaps the beast and the false prophet have been literally possessed by demons at some point.  Taken over as Judas was taken over.  But that would not apply to the dragon...Whatever they are, they are quite powerful, and their powers, their signs, their deeds are enough to convince the mortal rulers all over the world that they have "enough" to defeat God.  After all, they, like God, are supernatural, and very powerful.  You cannot expect lost kings to understand the invincibility of God.  If they did, they would have submitted before this.  These Kings, these most powerful of men, PREFER the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

2023 - Demonic spirits, and very persuasive.  Very demonstrative.  Think Darth Vader choking General what's his name.  This may be the kind of "signs" they did to "recruit" the kings of the earth.

Note also that these events portend "the great day of God the Almighty".  A single day is in view.  THE day.    Remember this, when studying, and this phrase gets used. 

And now the place of battle is named.  Armageddon comes at the end of the second 42, before the Millennial is put in place.

Hmmm...It will take some time to muster armies and move them into position at Megiddo to fight this battle.  So when I said weeks at most for these last 7 plagues, that's probably wrong.  Months seem now to be more likely 

2022 - Found these verses a few days later:

"The great day of the LORD is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the LORD is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there." [Zep 1:14 ESV]

"A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness," [Zep 1:15 ESV]

"a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements." [Zep 1:16 ESV]

2023 - Why is verse 15 here? 

15 ("Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!") [Rev 16:15 ESV]

It is all in red, but in parentheses.  How in the world did that get passed down all the way from John?   This appears to be a quote from Jesus.  This ties back to Matthew 24, these three verses:

42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. [Mat 24:42-44 ESV].

So perhaps vs 15 is a warning to those who will still be in hiding at this time that they ought not sleep once they see the frogs begin their recruiting.  The full on second coming is about to happen.  They will likely be in the battle.  No one wants to fight naked.

2025 - I think this verse Rev 16:15 ties to Mt 24:42 cf.  That tells us that by 42, Jesus is talking about the last of the bowl judgments.  This makes Mt 24:36-44 about Israel.  The church is gone, so we are between the rapture and the second coming.  Even during the upheaval of the bowls, God will be looking after the Jews.  They will still be grinding in the mills, and working in the fields.  The darkness of the 5th bowl will cover only the throne of Satan, as in Rev 16:10.  In the same way darkness fell only on Egypt, it will fall only on Satan's domain.

2025 - So the reason this verse is inserted by John is specifically to link Mt 24:42 with the time after the frogs go out, performing signs and wonders, and raising an army to attack those still in the light.  No more sitting on the fence for the rest of the world rulers.  The frogs convince them.  Perhaps the frogs are "spokesmen", since they come out of the mouths of the three, perhaps they are extremely high ranking officials of the dragon, of the beast, and of the false high priest, and all are delegated power to do wonders and so convince a majority of the secondary rulers of the world to send their armies to fight against the light.  Not real frogs...but frogs in the sense of arising from the bloody ocean and the bloody rivers...just as they did in Israel! 

The seventh bowl poured out in vs 17. 

2022 - "The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, "It is done!"" [Rev 16:17 ESV]

2023 - I think this too is the very voice of God.  He will send no more bowls, no more wrath.  The last of it is poured out...but its effects are not quite over.

And then for the third time (2023 - I think it is the fourth time.  I do not list below the one in 4:5 that kicks off these events.), we get this approximate verse:

"And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake." [Rev 16:18 ESV]

We saw it at 8:5 introducing the seven trumpets, which occur in the seventh seal, and are the beginning of Great Tribulation.  Then we saw it at 11:19, introducing the battle in heaven that leads to Satan's earthly kingdom, rise of the Antichrist and false prophet, and his administration of world government.  This also occurs at the beginning of Great Tribulation.  And now...what does it introduce?

Perhaps the proclamation of completion - IT IS DONE - refers to the end of the 42 months.  Satan's rule is over.  How power on earth is over.  The time for the appearance of the King of Kings is now at hand.  Maybe this is what it means. 

So the three times signal the end of Satan's power over God's chosen - he can no longer persecute the church because they are all removed TO HEAVEN, the end of Satan's time as accuser in heaven - he and his are removed FROM HEAVEN, and then the end of Satan's kingdom on the earth - he is removed FROM EARTH to the bottomless pit?  These three must be linked on many levels.  I just need to find the best description of what they mean. 

2023 - Four times we get the rumblings and the peals and the flashes.  Before the 70th begins,  at the end of the seals, at the end of the trumpets, and at the end of the bowls.

Greatest earthquake of all time, dividing the great city into three parts (2022 - Not much doubt about this city - "and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified." [Rev 11:8 ESV]) , islands and mountains just gone.  And huge hail falling.  Those receiving this punishment blaspheme God over it.  They apparently know this is all coming directly from God, yet they are defiant.

2022 - We ought to look at this verse in detail:

"The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath." [Rev 16:19 ESV]

We note from Rev 11:8 that the great city is Jerusalem.  In that verse it was equated with Sodom and Egypt.  In this verse, it is called Babylon the great.  It is Babylon/Sodom/Egypt that must receive the very last of God's wrath.  Babylon is the object of the last "swallow" of the wine of wrath.  The first bowl was those with the mark, 2,3 were directed against the earth, four was against people and earth - scorching heat, five plunged the planet into darkness, six dried up the rivers to prepare for the great battle.  And now seven laser focuses the last of God's wrath onto Jerusalem - Sodom/Egypt/Babylon.  What does this mean?  How does this play out?  Is this physically the destruction of the place we know as Jerusalem?  Or is it symbolism and vision?  Or both combined. 

We see that Jerusalem - I believe this is geographically Jerusalem as we know it - is split into three parts.  Sodom/Egypt/Babylon.  Three parts.  And that EVERY OTHER city of the nations fall.  ONLY this one is left, and it is in bad shape.  Jerusalem is "preserved" to receive the last of the wrath.  Nothing else on earth is the same.  No islands, no mountains. 

"great city" is used 8 times in 8 verses in Revelation.  We have seen two of them so far, as above.  We will see it once in Chapter 17, and the last five times are all in Rev 18.  Maybe we can figure out what it means.  BUT, at this point, I am pretty convinced that it means exactly what Rev 11:8 and 16:19 say it does.  It is literally the earthly city of Jerusalem.

Then hailstones of 100 lbs.  Why these here?  We saw them in 8:7, at the first trumpet, after the first use of "rumblings, lightning, and thunder".  We saw it first inside the 7th seal in Rev 8:5.  We saw hail next in 11:19 inside the 7th trumpet, as a part of the rumblings, lightning, and thunder.  And we see it now in Rev 16:21 as part of the 7th bowl, accompanying those same signifiers.  Yes, this signal - thunder, lightning, and rumbling - and I now add hail - is profoundly important, and I still have not unlocked its truth.   These are the only three times hail is mentioned in Revelation.  I remember it also as one of the plagues of Egypt, but I don't know if that is connected.  Sure seems to be a similar thing:

"Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now." [Exo 9:18 ESV].  It was the 7th plague in Exodus, the seventh seal, seventh trumpet and seventh bowl in Revelation.  Is that not interesting?  Locusts were the 8th plague on Egypt, and the fifth trumpet in Revelation.  The 9th plague in Egypt was darkness and darkness was the fifth bowl in Revelation. 

OHHHHH!  In Revelation, our phrase about rumbling, thunder and lightning, also includes hail. Each time, it occurs on the 7th - seals, trumpets, bowls.  I kept looking for it to signal the beginning of something, and couldn't make it work.  Because it signals the end.  If it is true that the 7 bowls are inside the trumpets are inside the seals, then these signs, this hail, the repeated phrase, perhaps is telling us that ALL these things conclude together in the pouring out of the last bowl, the last sip, of the wrath of God on Jerusalem.  It has all led to this one last thing God sends against the city he called his own.  Finally, I think I get it!

2023 - The earth lies shattered.  No map is accurate because the mountains are leveled and the islands have sunk.  The hail has pounded down everything above ground.  The whole earth is desolate.  And yet, the Dragon still wants this for himself, and he is still massing an army at Armageddon to fight for possession of it.  He cares not that millions will die - millions of hate-filled, God-despising men.  This is where 16 ends.

Second time, 2/25/20

Unlike the seals and the trumpets where the first four judgements were on the earth, these bowls are directed against mankind from the very first.

Hmmm...second turns all the ocean to blood, third turns all the fresh water to blood.  So man has nothing to drink.

Then this fourth, the sun gets very hot, scorching and burning people.  Again, only God can affect the sun.

At the fifth, it would seem that the actual demons inhabiting/possessing the Beast, the false prophet, and the image come forth without any further disguise.  Satan has seen that this is the end, and that he must make a last stand.  So even during the bowl judgements, with all the earth suffering and groaning under the wrath of God, Satan sends out frog-demons to press the Kings of those 10 kingdoms (maybe?) into fielding armies against the God the heaven.  Those kings, if they have the marks, and most certainly they do, know that they too are at their end, and are desperate enough to back the great deceiver yet again.

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