ARE WE UNDER THE SIXTH PLAGUE?
By D. T. Bourdeau
Some think that we are under the sixth plague. They reason thus: “Under the sixth plague the river Euphrates, or the Turkish empire, was to be dried up, and spiritualism was to perform its wonders. These events are now transpiring, therefore we are under the sixth plague.” A few facts are sufficient to show the fallacy of this argument. 1. The Turkish empire is not dried up; it has not ceased to exist. The sixth plague does not indicate the first stages of decay in the Turkish empire, but the complete extinction of that empire. No such overthrow, or drying up, has yet come upon Turkey. 2. The sixth plague does not bring to view the ordinary work of spiritualism, but a specific work of the spirits of devils, their going forth in a legalized manner—out of the mouth of, or as sanctioned by, heathen and so-called Christian authorities—performing miracles in connection with the work of gathering the kings of the earth to Palestine. This is not being done. Not an event of the sixth plague has transpired; therefore we are not under that plague. 3. By comparing the events of the first and sixth plagues, it is seen that the plagues fall upon one and the same generation. Those who receive the fifth plague suffer from the sores received under the first plague. Rev. 16:2, 10, 11. 4. The plagues will come upon Babylon “in one day, death, mourning, and famine.” Rev. 18:8. Famine could not come on Babylon in one literal day. Therefore the prophet here speaks of a year-day, the day of vengeance, the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. Eze. 4:5, 6; Isa. 34:1–8. 5. The three messages of Rev. 14, arousing the world on the proximity of the Judgment and of the coming of Christ (verses 6–14), are followed by the infliction of the wrath of God, the seven last plagues. Compare Rev. 14:10; 15:1; 16:1. These plagues are God’s wrath “without mixture.” They are wrath, are not mixed with mercy, and cannot therefore be inflicted till mercy closes and there is no intercessor between God and the sinner. Isa. 59:16–18. Then, and not till then, will Christ “put on the garments of vengeance;” and then can it be said the plagues of God’s wrath have come. God’s judgments are real, literal, and terrible; but the interpretation that puts most of the seven last plagues in the past removes the “terrors of the Lord” wherewith men should be persuaded to forsake their sins; and it helps to swell the cry of peace and safety, which is followed by “sudden destruction.” These plagues are said to be the “seven last plagues,” because they are emphatically the last plagues, and because there have been some similar to them in the past,—those that came upon Egypt. But no such plagues have as yet been witnessed under the present dispensation.