Time of Trouble
523
The plagues upon Egypt when God was about to deliver Israel were
similar in character to those more terrible and extensive judgments
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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 worshiped 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 wor-
thy.”
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 like manner Christ declared the Jews of His
time guilty of all the blood of holy men which had been shed since the
days of Abel; for they possessed the same spirit and were seeking to
do the same work with these murderers of the prophets.
In the plague that follows, power is given to the sun “to scorch men
with fire. And men were scorched with great heat.”
Verses 8, 9
. The
prophets thus describe the condition of the earth at this fearful time:
“The land mourneth; ... because the harvest of the field is perished....
All the trees of the field are withered: because joy is withered away
from the sons of men.” “The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners
are laid desolate.... How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are
perplexed, because they have no pasture.... The rivers of water are
dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.”
“The songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord
God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast
them forth with silence.”
Joel 1:10-12, 17-20
;
Amos 8:3
.
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
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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.