Revelation 16:1, commentary and pictures

The great voice out of the temple is the Lord commanding the seven angels at their posts to pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. The pouring comes after Jesus finishes His priestly interceding work in the heavenly sanctuary and leaves it to take up His kingly work of judgment, when every case is decided and mercy no longer pleads. It introduces the seven last plagues as the final outpouring of God's wrath upon the living wicked, poured without mixture into the cup of indignation. They fall on the finally impenitent who rejected truth and salvation, including worshipers of the beast with its mark, with destruction and suffering from which there is no shelter. Drops from the vials are already falling in calamities by land and sea as premonitory warnings, so the call is to get ready now while mercy still waits.

Voice, Angels, Commission

The great voice out of the temple is the Lord's mighty voice commissioning His angels to pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. The seven angels stand at their posts to fulfill heaven's commission, with the vials prepared amid great events working up under the prince of darkness while heavenly worlds watch in suspense. That pouring belongs to a future period of God's judgments on the world, when blackness and horrible darkness will clothe the heavens as sackcloth of hair. The dark, dreadful storm and the terror and destructive force of a severe hailstorm give only a faint foretaste of what that time will be like.

The time is the day of God's preparation, when every power in harmony with heaven must be awake and Zion must arise and shine because the glory of God is risen upon her. It calls for no strife, no pride of opinion, no selfishness and no seeking for supremacy, but for every soldier of Jesus Christ to put on the armor and prepare for battle. United and reaching the highest efficiency, every human agency is to be set to work in the highest service of saving souls, with pledged divine cooperation.

God's angels will soon be commanded to pour out the vials of His wrath upon the earth, and they carry out His judgments faithfully without questioning the command. When their work is finished they return the empty vials to the Lord. Christ will soon commission the angels around His throne to pour out God's wrath on the rebellious in the world, consuming everything opposed to God's government. He could commission them to destroy those filled with hatred of God and wipe the world from the universe, but instead, while this judgment is still approaching, He stands at the altar of incense presenting to God the prayers of those who seek His help.

Time After Intercession Ends

The seven last plagues are poured out after Jesus finishes His priestly and interceding work in the heavenly sanctuary and most holy place and leaves it. He then lays aside priestly ministry to take up His kingly role to execute judgment, putting on the garments of vengeance. That pouring therefore comes before the first resurrection and the second advent, when the plan of salvation is complete. While He ministers there the plagues cannot fall, but when He leaves restraint is removed and they fall on the finally impenitent who rejected salvation, reproof and truth. At that time the saints live before God without an Intercessor, and confessed sins are placed upon Satan their originator to bear their punishment.

The great voice out of the temple speaks when God keeps silent no longer after every case has been decided for salvation or destruction. Jesus has then laid off His priestly attire, clothed Himself with the garments of vengeance, and stepped out from between the Father and man. Wrath cannot come until the High Priest finishes His work in the sanctuary, until Michael has stood up, and until the four angels release the four winds they hold back while that work continues. The plagues follow the time when God's people are sealed. The anger of the nations, the wrath of God, and the time to judge the dead are separate events one following the other, with the nations now getting angry but the time of trouble such as never was not yet commenced.

The pouring waits until all God's people have been judged and the cases of both the living and the dead are decided, which is when the saints are sealed with the seal of the living God. God draws His covering over His people during that sealing, and those without that covering have no shelter from the burning wrath and slaughter when the bottles of wrath are poured out to destroy the wicked and their works. Before that pouring the warning Escape for thy life is sounded.

When mercy's invitation and intercession have ended there is no atoning blood to cleanse the guilty and wash away sin, and no pleading Saviour or Mediator to delay judgment. The time to repent, find shelter, and change has then ended, for the plagues are poured out without mixture into the cup of indignation, though a few drops have already fallen. Some then seek escape, but the saints have no further warning or help to offer, and those who rejected salvation too late desire life but cannot obtain it. The refreshing needed to stand is received only by those who have gained victory over sin, including pride, selfishness, love of the world, and wrong words and actions, purifying their souls by obeying the truth, for only holy, victorious beings can live in God's presence.

The saints do not carry out that judgment at that time, although they are then mighty and terrible. Its execution comes at the close of the thousand years in the second death. Those judgments on the living wicked are not the final execution, and after it God makes all things new and the blessed inherit the kingdom.

The plagues will soon fall upon the earth when the angel of mercy leaves the world, marking the end of God's patience and mercy waiting. Many of His professed people will come up to their falling without a shelter and will wring their hands in distress, because the hour to get ready will then be too late. The storm is gathering and the bolts of wrath are soon to fall, and when punishment of the transgressors begins there will be no period of respite until the end. They will strike kings and nobles, rich and poor alike, and human pride will be humbled. Until then God still holds out the precious privilege of exchanging darkness for light, error for truth, and sin for righteousness amid sin, shame, sorrow and darkness on every side, and only those sanctified through the truth in the love of God will stand, hid with Christ in God until the desolation is overpast, so the call is to get ready now.

Nature of Final Wrath

The command opens the seven last plagues as the final outpouring of wrath upon the living wicked, poured out without mixture into the cup of indignation. A few drops of that wrath have already fallen, but the full pouring of the vials is still future. The world treats the coming judgments as insignificant, yet they bring dreadful suffering and destruction with no deliverance for those struck.

They are the dreadful expression of the wrath of God and the Lamb, bringing destruction and death to the wicked who have no shelter. They bring burning wrath and slaughter, suffering, withering afflictions such as incurable sores, and those without God's covering have no shelter from them. That covering is drawn over His people during the sealing, before the plagues fall.

Blackness and horrible darkness will clothe the heavens as sackcloth of hair. The terror and destructive force of a severe hailstorm gives only a faint foretaste of that time. The opening of the vials brings pestilence, famine, and death upon earth's inhabitants, with armies mustering for battle, men's hearts failing for fear, the earth moved out of its place, mountains carried into the midst of the sea, and waves roaring and troubled.

The lost will then feel what Christ felt on the cross when He bore sin. Black despair will gather like a pall of death about their guilty souls as sustaining presence is withdrawn. Then they will realize to the fullest extent the sinfulness of sin.

That wrath is the wages received at the end by those who refuse the salvation purchased by the suffering and death of the Son of God. They willingly choose the pleasures and deceitfulness of sin and would not be drawn to Christ nor be molded into His likeness, though none are compelled to yield obedience to God's law. It is eternal death, forever separation from the presence of Jesus whose sacrifice they despised, having lost a life of happiness and sacrificed eternal glory for the pleasures of sin for a season.

Early Drops Now Falling

The vials are already being opened in small sprinklings and drops upon land and sea and upon the elements of the air, and the prophecy of the vials is rapidly being fulfilled. These early fallings are only faint representations and premonitory warnings of much greater and more terrible shakings and destructions to come in the near future. Then lordly palaces built at great expense will become heaps of ruins, the earth's crust will be rent by outbursts of elements concealed in its bowels sweeping away the treasures of wealthy oppressors, and the religious world will be terribly shaken, for the end of all things is at hand. This beginning comes while the Spirit is being withdrawn from the world and Satan works with bewitching influences, lying wonders, miracles, and fire from heaven to sweep in the whole world, and the coming of the vials is not discerned because the light of truth does not affect the heart.

The drops bring awful calamities by sea, with vessels hurled into eternity without a moment's warning, and accidents by land. Unusually destructive fires consume riches men have hoarded, much of it gathered by oppression of the poor, sweeping away the most costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven. Earthquakes bury cities and villages with their inhabitants, with limited earthquakes, premonitory convulsions, whole cities nearly extinct and thousands buried, alongside terrible railway accidents and tornadoes and floods destroying immense property and lives, such as the Johnstown and Williamsport floods that destroyed more than two thousand lives. The air is vitiated by a deadly miasma, harming plant life and bringing great mortality, crimes greater than any on record, weeping and lamentation and woe, pestilence, cholera and unexplainable diseases, and diphtheria gathering its harvest of little children, and the causes of these unusual conditions are searched for in vain. The disasters of 1889 in fires, earthquakes, accidents, tornadoes, floods, pestilences and disease were only such early sprinklings and faint signs of what is coming, preceding the great sign of the Son of man's coming.

God lets these fall by not restraining the powers of darkness from vitiating the air, one of the sources of life and nutrition, and carrying forward deadly work. He will not interfere to protect the property of those who transgress His law, break His covenant, and trample upon His Sabbath, accepting in its place a spurious rest day and unsanctified first-day rest. He permits these judgments to come so that the world may take heed, that professing Christians may be brought to their senses, and that sinners may be afraid and tremble before Him, because the end of all things is at hand.

These present judgments are sent with special meaning because the last great crisis is fast approaching. They are a warning of how near the end is and a call to spend less time in strife and contention and to consider the crisis ahead. Those who claim these judgments have no special meaning will soon be forced to understand what they now choose not to understand. This judgment follows a period in which God moves slowly to carry out His purpose for the benefit of the righteous, with the warning to be right with God, who will defend them in the time of trouble.

Prophetic Place and Conflict

The verse belongs to the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 18 which are being fulfilled, as part of the sequence leading to final events and to Christ's triumph and reign. It stands within the final prophetic warning and the events that bring that triumph to pass.

The plagues of Egypt and Israel's release from bondage foreshadow this judgment, for the seven last plagues fall on the wicked just before and during the saints' deliverance. The anger of the nations, the wrath of God, and the time to judge the dead are separate events following one after another in order. The nations are now getting angry, but the time of trouble such as never was has not yet commenced. The wrath cannot come until intercession is finished in the most holy place, every case decided for salvation or destruction, priestly attire laid aside for garments of vengeance, Michael stood up, and the four angels release the four winds held back during that work.

Vial after vial is poured out one after another upon the inhabitants of the earth as solemn events yet to transpire but right upon us, coming after trumpet after trumpet is sounded. They are scenes of stupendous interest showing Christ directing every aggressive movement, accompanying the march of His cause, vindicating His truth and causing it to triumph, and supplying His faithful with motives and power of purpose, hope, courage, valor and increased activity. They belong to the last great final contest when every form of evil springs into intense activity, evil angels unite their powers with evil men with centuries of experience in deception and battle and will not yield without desperate struggle, all the world takes sides on one side or the other, and the battle of Armageddon is fought. Therefore none must sleep but be wide awake as wise virgins having oil in vessels with lamps, which is grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, sustained by the power of God lest faith and courage fail, with the Captain of the Lord's host standing at the head of the angels of heaven to direct the battle.

The angels are already girded at their posts awaiting the mandate of God to pour their vials of wrath upon the world. Destroying angels are taking up the work of vengeance because the Spirit of God is gradually being withdrawn from the world. The sprinkling of the vials is already coming, yet not discerned because the light of truth does not affect the heart. At the same time Satan is working with all manner of bewitching influences to take the world captive, with lying wonders, miracles, and causing fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men to sweep in the whole world, a miracle-working power now just beginning. He is mustering his forces of evil to gather the kings of the earth for the battle of that great day of God Almighty, making most powerful efforts for mastery in the last great conflict when fundamental principles are brought out and faith is tested individually. The world has been lulled into security by Satan's deception through spiritual manifestations and lying wonders and miracles declared to exceed the works of Christ, and remains caught in this snare until the plagues begin and the deception is exposed.

The plagues come upon a godless world when lawlessness and contempt for God's law have exceeded the bounds of His grace. They are prepared to come when unrighteousness swells to a fearful pass, when nations trample His holy law under foot, make human laws supreme, and unite in rebellion and hatred against Him. Centuries of ripening guilt reach their limit when men outrun His grace, exhaust His mercy and pass the boundaries, so that Omnipotence reckons the sum of guiltiness of every nation. The crimes and degrading wickedness of humanity have reached heaven, and God will not bear them much longer. Then His wonderful long forbearance ends and He vindicates His honor by direct interference, and the wicked drink the cup of His wrath without mercy.

The time is the day of God's preparation, with the vials being prepared amid great events working up under the prince of darkness while heavenly worlds watch in suspense. It calls for every power in harmony with heaven to be awake and for Zion to arise and shine because the glory of God is risen upon her. There must be no strife, no pride of opinion, no selfishness, and no seeking for supremacy, but every soldier of Jesus Christ must put on the armor and prepare for battle. United, they are to reach the highest efficiency in setting every human agency to work in the highest service of saving souls, with pledged divine cooperation.

Those Struck by Plagues

The vials fall on the finally impenitent who rejected truth, reproof and salvation, after intercession has ended and restraint is removed. They strike the ungodly who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark on forehead or hand, bringing incurable sores and withering afflictions with no deliverance and no shelter for those struck. Those who keep breaking the holy Sabbath will face them unable to plead excuse when justice requires, then recognizing their sin in despising a law that is holy, just and good. Those who cannot discern the signs of the times in a wicked and adulterous generation will perish under them.

All classes will be subject to them, kings and nobles and rich and poor alike struck and human pride humbled. Some present at the conferences will be subject to these plagues, while others will live until Jesus comes and be translated. The slave-master who kept his slave in ignorance must endure them before rising in the second resurrection to suffer the second death. Undisciplined children left without government and correction, lying, deceiving, stealing, practicing iniquity and thinking it smart with no sense of sin, develop as Satan's agents and will receive the plagues as surely as Eli's sons fell beneath wrath because Eli neglected to restrain them.

As the plagues take effect the wicked suffer greatly and turn on one another in agony and rage. Families blame one another for keeping saving truth away, and people bitterly reproach ministers who promised conversion and peace instead of warning of this hour. Those who hindered warnings will hear bitter reproaches and lose heart. They fall on false shepherds who lead the flock to destruction, and one or two plagues will not suffice until they acknowledge that God loved the saints because they held fast to truth and kept His commandments and until all the unrighteous are destroyed. Ministers also suffer God's wrath, ten times more severely than their people.

The vials enrage the wicked against the righteous, for they blame the saints for the judgments and seek to rid the earth of them to stay the plagues. This persecution brings the saints into Jacob's trouble, when they cry out in anguish and are delivered by God's voice. The 144,000 triumph with God's glory lighting their faces. They come after ministers have done their last work, offered their last prayers, shed their last bitter tears and given their last solemn warning to a rebellious church and ungodly people, when mercy, invitation and intercession have ended with no atoning blood to cleanse and no pleading Saviour to delay judgment. Then the impenitent seek escape in vain and the saints have no further warning or help to offer, but wander from sea to sea and from north to east running to and fro to seek the Word in famine for hearing it without finding it, offering houses and lands and miserly hoarded dollars for consolation, explanation, a hopeful word, prayer or exhortation, yet hungering and thirsting on unquenched with no consolation because cases are decided and eternally fixed and life cannot then be obtained.

Call to Prepare Now

God's word tells how to escape the seven last plagues of wrath soon to fall on those without shelter, and those who neglect that word will be judged by it with their lives measured against its standard. The symbols of Revelation require close, prayerful study without giving them a false meaning, because understanding them is necessary to shape one's course and conduct so as not to receive the plagues.

Their setting is a warning to the remnant to prepare for the day of the Lord and to give themselves wholly to God, and those who would escape and share Christ's glory must be willing to suffer for Him. Before the vials are poured out, God has honest children among the nominal Adventists and the fallen churches who will be called out, and ministers and people will yet gladly embrace the truth, leave those churches, and take their stand with the remnant.

Those who neglected the needed preparation will then find no time to change and no Mediator to plead for them, for the refreshing needed to stand is received only by those who have gained victory over pride, selfishness, love of the world, and wrong words and actions, purifying their souls by obeying the truth and becoming holy, since only holy beings can live in God's presence. To escape, people must be pure, virtuous, and holy, ever remembering they are God's redeemed property, cleansing the soul-temple from every trace of pollution and being healthy Christians physically and spiritually. Only those sanctified through the truth in the love of God will stand, hid with Christ in God until the desolation is overpast, when the angel of mercy leaves the world and the storm with the bolts of wrath falls with no period of respite until the end.

Consternation will spread through all countries, especially the large cities where wickedness has grown greatly, so living farther from the cities offers a more favorable setting for forming a character prepared to stand when these judgments come. The judgments warn against influencing others toward ruin, for those whose influence has helped make people drunkards must face God's judgment, set alongside the antitypical day of atonement when each person's case will soon come under review before God.

While patience and mercy wait amid sin, shame, sorrow and darkness on every side, God still holds out the precious privilege of exchanging darkness for light, error for truth, and sin for righteousness before the pouring marks the end of His waiting. After Adam's sin He could have treated humanity as sinners deserved and commanded the angels to remove them from His universe, but instead He came near to fallen people and gave His Son to redeem them.