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Seven Last Plagues Begin to Fall, September 16
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.
Revelation 16:1
.
When Christ ceases His intercession in the sanctuary, the unmingled
wrath threatened against those who worship the beast and his image and
receive his mark (
Revelation 14:9, 10
), will be poured out. The plagues
upon Egypt when God was about to deliver Israel were similar in character
to those more terrible and extensive judgments which are to fall upon the
world just before the final deliverance of God’s people. Says the revelator,
in describing those terrific scourges: “There fell a noisome and grievous
sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which
worshipped his image.” The sea “became as the blood of a dead man: and
every living soul died in the sea.” And “the rivers and fountains of waters
...became blood.” Terrible as these inflictions are, God’s justice stands fully
vindicated. The angel of God declares: “Thou art righteous, O Lord, ...
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.”
Revelation 16:2-6
. By condemning the people of God to death, they have as
truly incurred the guilt of their blood as if it had been shed by their hands....
In the plague that follows, power is given to the sun “to scorch men
with fire. And men were scorched with great heat.”
Verse 8, 9
....
These plagues are not universal, or the inhabitants of the earth would
be wholly cut off. Yet they will be the most awful scourges that have ever
been known to mortals. All the judgments upon men, prior to the close of
probation, have been mingled with mercy. The pleading blood of Christ has
shielded the sinner from receiving the full measure of his guilt; but in the
final judgment, wrath is poured out unmixed with mercy.
The bolts of God’s wrath are soon to fall, and when He shall begin to
punish the transgressors, there will be no period of respite until the end.
The storm of God’s wrath is gathering, and those only will stand who are
sanctified through the truth in the love of God. They shall be hid with Christ
in God till the desolation shall be overpast.
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