The Fourth and Fifth Plagues
By B. G. Wilkinson
The second and third angels have done their work. Did the sea and rivers continue to yield refreshing waters, they would offer a recoil to the stroke of the succeeding plague. But the third angel, returning from his task, announces that the earth has yielded back the oceans and rivers of blood, which she had received from the slain saints. Like all wicked deeds, the harvest comes back in a most unbearable form; for this blood, returning now, strengthens the coming plague. Leaving his position in front of the temple, “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 great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give Him glory.” The visitation of this plague must be something terrible. Under the three preceding ones no utterance is heard from those upon whom they fell. But the effects of the fourth vial bring out blasphemous expressions from the lips of the guilty. The wicked no longer find shelter from that God who so often has sent rain upon the just and upon the unjust. No longer do they enjoy the tempered and blessed rays of the sun. That which was a blessing has now become a burden. Added strength is given to the sun’s light, so that it shines with fierce intensity. This heat is no ordinary hot spell. The Greek conveys the idea of heat having increased to fire. Men are surrounded, as it were, with an atmosphere of fire. It does not consume; but it presses close upon the despisers of God’s grace, until the very flesh is burned. Now men are brought to realize what God may be when love, insulted and mistreated, has changed into fierceness of wrath. Such unusual heat extends its desolation all around. Fields as well as men are scorched. Beasts share with human beings in the sufferings of this burning heat. The25famine began under the two preceding plagues is greatly increased. Now has come the time so long foretold by the prophet Joel. Joel 1:1–3, 15–20. “Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land.” Why? The prophet would ask a question. He would tell of a condition heretofore unknown, and so demands: “Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?” No; never has the history or the traditions of men revealed the like. Extraordinary as it is, it will not be related simply that the listeners may feast on something wonderful. But: “Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.” Why? Simply that these children may successively relate some great event of the past?—No. But for mercy’s sake keep on telling it. Tell it on, that the generations yet unborn, upon whom this terrible thing shall come, may be warned and may escape. What is it? “Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. . . . The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. O Lord, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.” Only the fire did John see; but Joel saw the withered fields, the groaning beasts, and the herds perplexed. And the sight so overpowered him that he pleaded with the generations then unborn never to cease proclaiming the warning. Why should men permit the interests of flocks and fields to trample out their service to God? Must not wealth thus loved receive the blighting breath? God shall not always be set aside. The scene which he brought Joel to look upon must be experienced by those whose transgressions have brought down the blighting plagues. The effect of this burning heat will bring to some more terrible sufferings than to others. But none will suffer more than those who have transgressed in misusing the physical frame. While, on the other hand, they will be most able to endure who before indulgence have placed obedience to the divine counsels concerning the body. This has been the experience of the past; the experience of the future will be similar. I quote from a clipping taken from the Chicago Times-Herald, Aug. 13, 1896. It is an editorial:— The hot spell is over at last. . . . The gentle rain from heaven released millions from the bonds in which they writhed under the torrid sky, and, good physician that it is, healed the sick, rescued the dying from the jaws of death, and set up all the world erect and hopeful and happy. . . . It came none too soon for the country. On all sides the suffering has been intense; and as one hot day followed on the heels of another, the effects threatened to amount to a national calamity. The death rate from sunstroke or collapse was as large as that occasioned by a widespread epidemic of smallpox. But the deaths caused directly by the heat were few in number compared with those in which the weather was only an ALLY OF DISEASE AND CONSTITUTIONAL WEAKNESS. No one can read the returns from the health department for this memorable week without amazement and horror. Scores of persons who might have successfully resisted death for months to come, scores of others, suffering from maladies whose fatal power was unsuspected, succumbed to the terror of the sun. The weak, the badly nourished, and the overworked were unresisting victims of the unfeeling sky. That great week of hot weather in 1896 clearly showed that they fell first whose bodies were the home of diseases. Had not intemperance, impurity, and transgression first broken in upon the soundness of the frame, the sun’s rays would have fallen powerless. How farseeing, then, are the calls of God to purity, temperance, and industry! Who shall go down before the attack of the fourth plague?— Those who have neglected these calls. But who shall successfully breast the prostrating effects of this fiery atmosphere?—Even those who have heard and heeded the divine counsels upon healthful living. This plague brings the time when it can be fully discerned who serve God and who serve Him not. Upon the characters of men it has a ripening effect. The tares can now be fully distinguished from the wheat. Open blasphemy becomes a recognized fact. And from this plague onward till tongues are silent in death, blasphemy continues. Men again blaspheme at the falling of the fifth plague; while the scenes of the seventh, and last, are intermingled with the curses of the eternally lost. The blasphemy of the Beast during the days it sat exalted high upon a monarch’s seat were the deceiving religious tones of Antichrist. The characters of wicked men were fixed, never to be unsettled, before the plagues began to fall. But under the fourth plague those wicked men break forth into open blasphemy. Not that the plagues come to drive them into blasphemy, but to disclose the blasphemy already in their hearts. This disclosure was occasioned by the fourth plague. The fourth angel was the first to witness its open manifestation. Therefore he is best entitled to make that unchangeable announcement of Rev. 14:18: “And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to Him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth: for her grapes are fully ripe.” Another angel had cried to the Son of man, seated upon the white cloud, that the harvest is ripe. But that the grapes were ripe, the wicked who would be cast into the winepress of wrath, is the proclamation of the angel that had power over fire. You see, then, that the angel of the fourth plague is an actor in the scenes both of chapter fourteen and of chapter sixteen. Why so? In chapter fourteen he had seen men create a god, and demand all others to worship him. He beheld the new creators, conscious of their divinity’s helplessness, decree for him a mark of authority. That mark, we have seen, was a day of worship, a sabbath in counterfeit of that of the true God. By the power of the State it was decreed that that mark, that sabbath, should be accepted upon penalty of death. That day of worship we have seen is Sunday. The origin of Sunday dates back to the times of heathen sun worship. Therefore, though blindly, perhaps ignorantly, yet virtually, untold millions were ignoring God’s Sabbath, and worshiping the day of the sun. In this they were deifying the sun. It then becomes necessary that their deity be dethroned. So the decree went forth from God to the fourth angel to turn into unbearable fire the gracious rays of the sun. And this afflicting torment brought to light the hidden blasphemy. Now the grapes stood forth fully ripe for the winepress of God’s wrath. How accurately does the proclamation of the angel in chapter fourteen declare the transgressors of God’s law to be those who receive the fourth plague. The intimate connection of the proclamation with the events of that chapter show the angel’s acquaintance with the transgressors and their sin. This knowledge makes him fully informed with respect to those upon whom he is to pour out the fire of his vial, while the blasphemy he witnesses upon pouring out the vial qualifies him to proclaim that the grapes, the wickedly disobedient, are ripe for the winepress of wrath. The false prophet had attempted to extend the worship of the Beast by calling fire down from heaven. Rev. 13:13. But it was reserved for God to send that fire; and when it came, terrible was it on those who had used it in deception. It was terrible also on those who, in full sight of God’s warning, went into the deception. No wonder Joel turned from the scene and begged unborn generations to prepare against that coming season, to escape the terrible calamity. But another blow is to smite the blessed gift of light: the kingdom of the Beast is to be plunged from the extreme presence of light to its extreme absence. While the fiery atmosphere from the sun is prostrating men and withering fields, the fifth angel departs on his retributive mission. “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.” This is the culminating stroke which is aimed directly at the Beast. It falls first upon his throne, then strikes through to all the inhabitants of his kingdom. This apostate and his followers had rejected the light of God; now God deprives them of physical light. The darkness into which they are plunged must be actual darkness, since the Scripture presents them as already darkened spiritually. What kind of darkness is it—what is its nature?—Alas, its nature is only too apparent. Why will men reject the light of God that such a blow as this must fall? Even as disobedient men are shut up in spiritual darkness, so are they shut in actual darkness. I may place myself in darkness by having the light withdrawn, or, while the light is shining, by simply closing my eyes; but darkness reigns supreme when the eyes are closed in death. Is not this the case here? Let the record of this plague be examined, and such will be found to be the manner of its coming. The object upon which this vial is poured out is the throne, the reigning seat, of the Beast. That it is the throne we know, because the Greek word here translated “seat,” in the Revised Version is more correctly rendered “throne.” In consequence of the throne receiving this vial, the kingdom is darkened. Why was the throne of the Beast the object of this punishment?—Because the fifth is the last of the vials which have to do directly with the Beast. The two remaining plagues are more extensive. The sixth includes all reigning monarchs in its disaster, while the seventh spreads far and wide the desolation of the whole earth. But the fifth is the finishing stroke directly against the papacy; and as such, it is similar to the last plague which fell upon the Egyptians. That dreadful visitation, demanding the life of the firstborn, brought darkness to all the homes of Egypt, from the monarch on his throne to the humblest subject. It was not spiritual darkness, but physical darkness, the darkness of death. “And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon.” The darkness of death, closing the eyes to light, and bringing grief to the bereaved, falls upon the Beast, from the reigning pontiff on his throne to his least follower. How many shall perish in this visitation we do not know, but so terrible is the grief that the survivors gnaw their tongues. As the forces of a mighty empire invading the territory of a government, small yet well-beloved by the people, bring darkness on that land when they spread confusion, terror, and desolation, and fill the land with grief, so does darkness come upon the kingdom of the Beast. The kingdom of heaven levels its blow at the throne of the Beast; confusion and death fill his kingdom; and uniting with the preceding plague, horrifying grief finds utterance only in inexpressible agony. “And [they] repented not of their deeds.” The day of repentance is gone. The time to make right all wrongs was before Jesus left the mercy seat. Now it is too late. Such calamities as these are unbearable enough under any circumstances. But when the unrepenting soul has forfeited God’s helping presence, who can estimate the greatness of these sufferings? Let all take heed and make their peace with God while the day of mercy lingers. With the firstborn lying dead within his arms, the Egyptian king rose up in maddened frenzy, and ordered his armies to pursue to battle the escaping hosts of Israel. So the Beast, frenzied by the fearful stroke of the fifth plague, arises with the kings26of the earth and their armies to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. And as the hosts of Pharaoh marched forward to their own destruction, so the sixth angel prepares the way for the self-devouring conflicts across the dried-up waters of the Euphrates. B. G. Wilkinson.