Revelation 16:14, commentary and pictures

The verse describes unclean spirits of devils coming from the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, working miracles before rulers and people throughout the whole world to gather them for the final battle of the great day of God Almighty, called Armageddon. In the last days those spirits work lying signs and wonders, including fire from heaven, impersonation of the dead in look and voice, false Christs, and apparent healings, yet miracles are no proof of truth. They go out to deceive rulers and subjects everywhere and unite them with Satan against heaven's government in a war upon the remnant who keep God's commandments, centered on setting aside God's law and His Sabbath memorial for a spurious sabbath enforced by human law. What John saw is for the last remnant of time and is now advancing, while four mighty angels still hold back the winds until God's servants are sealed, and once Christ ends intercession and mercy leaves the world the plagues of God's unmixed wrath fall on the living wicked. The defense is the Scriptural truth that the dead know nothing, which exposes these apparitions as devils, and the world must be warned by the message calling back to loyalty to God's law while all watch and keep their garments clothed in Christ's righteousness ready to stand in that day.

Text and Vision Setting

The verse pictures three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. These are spirits of devils working miracles, going forth to the kings of the earth and to the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. That gathering is the dragon's war against the remnant of the woman's seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, carried on by a deceived company working counter to God in a last-days peril. Because this gathering work is going forward, those who have light on Bible truth must be wide awake and advance with God's opening providence, while Christ comes as a thief so that those who watch and keep their garments will be blessed and not be found naked in shame.

The verse belongs to the prophecies in Revelation 12-18, which are being fulfilled, and to the account in Revelation 16 of the seven last plagues. Those plagues contain all the wrath God will pour out on the living wicked, falling on the wicked who have no shelter, including those who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark. The word of God tells people how to escape them. They precede and accompany the saints' deliverance, just as the plagues on Egypt before and at Israel's deliverance foreshadowed this final deliverance. That wrath comes in a future day of judgment, after Jesus finishes His priestly work in the heavenly sanctuary and takes up His kingly work of judgment, so the plagues are future.

The gathering for the battle of the great day of God Almighty is the final conflict between good and evil, called Armageddon. The earth is its battlefield, where Satan's forces and the forces of earth revolt against God and oppose those who serve Him. Four mighty angels now hold back the powers of this earth and keep the armies of Satan at bay, belting the world unseen with linked hands and sleepless vigilance until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads, though the nations are eager for conflict. When this restraining power is removed the world will be left under Satan's control and there will come a time of trouble and anguish, with deadly instruments of warfare newly invented and vessels with their living cargo entombed in the great deep. The last great day of battle divides the world into only two classes, the same two classes recognized in the judgment: on one side stands the Creator of heaven and earth, and all on His side bear His signet and are obedient to His every command, keeping God's law, and on the other side stands the prince of darkness with those who have chosen apostasy and rebellion and violate God's law. The conflict ends with rebellion forever suppressed and God's final victory, and its marshaling of the nations belongs to events whose fulfillment can be traced in history and in God's dealings with the nations.

Miracles and Impersonating Spirits

In the last days spirits of devils work miracles, signs and lying wonders before the people to deceive them and gather the rulers of the earth and of the whole world for the final battle against God. Their supernatural workings include healings and great wonders, even bringing fire down from heaven to earth in the sight of men. At the same time false claimants present themselves as Christ, perform healings, and profess to bring revelations from heaven that contradict Scripture. The work of deception and destruction by these miracle-working demons reaches its climax in the time of trouble, when rulers and subjects alike are deceived and urged to unite with Satan in his final struggle against heaven's government. These manifestations that make the dead appear to live show that miracles must never be trusted as proof of truth.

The spirits appear as deceased relatives and friends, with familiar look, words and tone reproduced as a perfect counterfeit, claiming to be dead loved ones returned. They profess to bring communication from the dead, though such communication comes from evil spirits and not from departed people, for the dead know nothing. They appeal for sympathy, teach unscriptural doctrines such as that the Sabbath has been changed, promote heresies, and work miracles to prove their words true. Scripture's truth that the dead know nothing exposes these apparitions as spirits of devils and prepares God's people to withstand them by holding present truth from the Bible. Dealing with familiar spirits and seeking such communication is forbidden as deception.

Satan himself will soon be closely connected with wonderful scenes by working miracles before the people. He will make people sick and then suddenly remove his satanic power so that they are regarded as healed. These works of apparent healing will bring to the test even those who have had great light, and many will fail to walk in the light because they have not become one with Christ and His instruction is not palatable to them. Spiritual manifestations of the devil are a last-day sign and are on the increase, so the signs of the last days must be brought out clearly to meet the busy, energetic work of Satan and spreaders of error. When spiritualistic deceptions are revealed as the secret work of evil spirits, those who have taken part in them will become as people who have lost their minds.

These miracles are deceptive, presented by the enemy as truth, and must not influence believers. The wicked will claim they have the truth because miracles are among them, angels from heaven talk and walk with them, and great power and signs and wonders are performed among them. Those angels are Satan personating the dead who are claimed to have gone to heaven and to bear testimony as heavenly messengers. Believers must instead stand firm on the platform of eternal truth, put on the whole armor of God, and remain under the instruction of the great Author of all truth to withstand this deceptive influence when they see it.

The deception also includes false religious revivals through Satan's agents using deceptive signs and wonders to draw people away from truth and draw attention away from Christ, claimed to surpass His works, while false teaching discredits the Bible and Christ's birth, death and resurrection. A satanic religious excitement is raised before the plagues are poured out and before the loud cry of the third angel, intended to make those who rejected the truth think God is still working through the fallen churches, and to deceive honest people. This lying wonder lulls people into false security so that they do not recognize the deception until the seven last plagues are poured out, though before the plagues fall honest people will recognize the truth, leave those churches and join the remnant, while God seals His people to shelter them.

Gathering World for Battle

The miracle-working spirits go out to rulers and subjects throughout the whole world to deceive them and urge them to unite with Satan in his final struggle against the government of heaven. This gathering is Satan's final effort to deceive, prepared for since Eden and reaching its full accomplishment in the last remnant of time through the masterpiece of Spiritualism. Its foundation was laid by the assurance to Eve that disobedience would not bring death and that eating would open human eyes to be as gods knowing good and evil, built up little by little until the lie that people do not truly die sweeps the world. Except those kept by the power of God through faith in His Word, the whole world will be swept into the ranks of this delusion, lulled into fatal security until awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God. The deception reaches its climax in the time of trouble, when rulers and ordinary people alike are deceived, and the prophetic conflict is already fulfilling and advancing in triumph today through consulting mediums with familiar spirits.

Satan is now mustering his forces of evil, going forth to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them under his banner and train them for the battle of that great day. This takes place in a solemn fearful time when the angels are already girded awaiting God's mandate to pour their vials of wrath upon the world, when destroying angels take up the work of vengeance because the Spirit of God is gradually withdrawing from the world. He summons evil men and evil angels to carry on his schemes in secrecy, binds men in bundles into a corrupt union among the wicked, claims the world is on his side, and marshals armies for the last great struggle. Those banded together trample down the standard of righteousness to please Satan and gratify a world at enmity with God and His law, aiming to make God's law void and to bring religious liberty to an end even in the land of boasted freedom. Evil angels unite their powers with evil men and every form of evil springs into intense activity, having gained experience in deception and battle and strengthened for centuries so they will not yield without a desperate struggle, while Satan invents every device to lull those who know the truth into fatal slumber until the issue comes upon them before their work is done. Satan will make his most powerful efforts for mastery in the last great conflict, when fundamental principles will be brought out and decisions made in regard to them amid prevailing skepticism and abounding ungodliness, and the faith of each church member will be tested as though there were not another person in the world.

The gathering is the dragon's war against the remnant of the woman's seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, coming from the mouth of the dragon and the beast and the false prophet as three unclean spirits like frogs. It is a final worldwide apostasy against God's law, centered on destroying the Sabbath of the fourth commandment given as the memorial of creation and setting up a spurious sabbath in its place. By leading men and women to disregard the fourth commandment they are placed on Satan's side, and unsealed professed Christians become idolaters by giving to a man-made institution the glory God requires for His Sabbath and by compelling others to worship this idol. God's people must have no part in worldly practices but keep His commandments, maintaining distinct separation between obedient and disobedient with open enmity between the church and Satan and between their respective offspring. The deception is used to prove worldwide conversion and harmony with the Sunday law and that the long-expected temporal millennium has come, while the wicked claim they have the truth because miracles, heavenly talk and great power are among them through Satan personating the dead as heavenly messengers. The obedient are mocked as small, feeble, poverty-stricken people who stand alone in defiance of the laws of the land, refuse to concede to the customs and laws of the world, and are cut off so they cannot buy or sell, while unrepentant despisers of God's law will be visited with retributive judgments poured out without mixture of mercy.

The gathering stirs nations to war and musters armies as one of the terrible scenes that are signs of coming, with men's hearts failing them for fear amid pestilence, famine, death, the earth moved out of its place, mountains carried into the sea, and roaring troubled waves. War stirs people's worst passions, brings ruin, and distracts them from preparing to stand in that day. The present unrest and wars are not yet the general engagement, for four mighty angels now hold back the powers of earth and the four winds and keep the armies of Satan at bay, belting the world unseen with linked hands and sleepless vigilance until God's servants are sealed in their foreheads. The nations are eager for conflict but are held in check, refusing Satan's claim to supremacy over the world because of his many adherents. When this restraining power is removed there will come a time of trouble and anguish with deadly instruments of warfare newly invented and vessels with their living cargo entombed in the great deep, and all who have not the spirit of truth will unite under satanic leadership for the great battle.

Timing and Plagues Fulfilled

The verse foretells what John saw on Patmos for the last days and the last remnant of time, when demonic miracle-working spirits go to the rulers of the earth and the whole world to gather them for the battle of the great day of God Almighty. That gathering work is already going forward and advancing in triumph today, seen in men consulting mediums with familiar spirits and reproducing the heathen abominations once set before Israel. Its judgments carry special meaning showing how fast the crisis before Christ's coming approaches, with prophecies fulfilling, iniquity abounding, love waxed cold, and the final conflict short and decisive, yet many asleep and moving haphazardly instead of feeling, sensing and acting in reference to that great day. Because this peril is right upon the world and the plagues just upon the world, God's children who have light on Bible truth must be wide awake, advance with God's opening providence, keep His commandments, have no part in worldly practices, and remain clothed in Christ's righteousness while maintaining distinct separation and open enmity between the church and Satan and between their respective offspring.

Satan's final effort in this gathering was prepared for since Eden and reaches its accomplishment in the masterpiece of Spiritualism in the last remnant of time. Its foundation was laid by the assurance to Eve that disobedience would not bring death and that eating would open human eyes to be as gods knowing good and evil, built upon little by little until its full development. Then the three unclean frog-like spirits, which are spirits of devils working miracles, go forth to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Except those kept by the power of God through faith in His Word, the whole world will be swept into the ranks of this delusion, lulled into fatal security until awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God.

Four mighty angels now hold back the powers of earth and the four winds, belting the world unseen with linked hands and sleepless vigilance to keep Satan's armies at bay and prevent open conflict. The nations are eager for conflict but are held in check, refusing Satan's claim to supremacy because of his many adherents, until God's servants are sealed in their foreheads. Present unrest and wars are not yet the general engagement, and the remaining probation is therefore time to prepare for that conflict with the Lord as refuge for those who trust in Him who will come to punish the world's iniquity. When this restraining power is removed there will come a time of trouble and anguish such as never was, with deadly instruments of warfare newly invented and vessels with living cargo entombed in the great deep, and all who have not the spirit of truth will unite under satanic leadership for the great battle of Armageddon.

The seven last plagues contain all the wrath God will pour out on the living wicked in the future day of judgment, and they are poured only after Jesus finishes His priestly intercession for Israel in the most holy place in heaven. Then He lays off His priestly attire, clothes Himself with garments of vengeance and kingly robes, steps out from between the Father and man, and leaves heaven, with the angel of mercy leaving the world. There is no more atoning blood or intercession for those who rejected salvation, the time for warnings and prayers for sinners has ended, those without shelter face wrath without mixture of mercy, and those who only then seek escape have chosen too late with the plan of salvation completed. The plagues are held back until then by the four angels holding the four winds, and come after the present angering of the nations but before the standing up of Michael and the time of trouble such as never was.

When poured out the plagues enrage the wicked against the righteous, who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark having no shelter, are blamed for bringing the judgments down and marked for removal in hope the plagues will then be stayed, with decree to kill them. God's hand remains stretched out until His purposes are complete: the hireling priests and false shepherds who led their people to destruction and cried peace will worship at the saints' feet and acknowledge that God loved them because they held fast to truth and kept His commandments, while all the unrighteous are destroyed from the earth. The wicked turn bitterly on families and ministers who failed to warn, facing wrath without respite until desolation ends.

Drops and sprinklings of the vials are already falling, permitted to warn the world and lead sinners to fear God, that professing Christians may come to their senses and tremble before Him. These drops affect land and sea and air, appearing as vitiated deadly air and deadly miasma, disasters by sea with vessels hurled into eternity without warning and accidents by land with fire consuming hoarded riches, unusually destructive fires, earthquakes burying cities and villages, terrible railway accidents, tornadoes and floods destroying immense property and thousands of lives, pestilences, cholera and unexplainable diseases, and diphtheria gathering its harvest of children. God permits this by not restraining the powers of darkness from vitiating the air and carrying forward death and destruction, whose causes men search for in vain, and He will not interfere to protect the property of those who transgress His law, break His covenant, and trample His Sabbath by accepting a spurious rest-day. These present calamities are only faint representations and premonitory convulsions warning of far greater shocks to come in fuller measure in the near future, when the earth shakes and opens, the crust is rent by elements concealed in its bowels, lordly palaces become heaps of ruins, wealth gotten by oppression is swept away, the religious world is terribly shaken, and the whole world is divided into just and unjust with signs in the heavens preceding the coming of the Son of man, for the end of all things is at hand.

The plagues come when time has lasted only a little longer until inhabitants have filled the cup of iniquity and this land of light drinks the cup of unmingled wrath long slumbered now awake, appointed to sword and famine and pestilence with desolating power to rend and destroy. They are poured on a world defiled by its inhabitants and marked by transgression of God's law, when contempt for law and unrighteousness swelling to a fearful pass have passed their bounds and exceeded the limits of grace after centuries of ripening the harvest for the sickle. The cause is making void God's law, trampling it underfoot and making human laws supreme in cooperation with evil angels and in growing hostility, war, bloodshed and hatred toward God, presuming upon His mercy. Then God interferes to vindicate His honor and punish inhabitants for iniquity, and when He begins there is no period of respite until the end brings desolation, with only those sanctified through truth in love of God standing hid with Christ in God until desolation is overpast, though patience and mercy still hold out the privilege of exchanging darkness for light, error for truth, and sin for righteousness.

Truth Tested and Proclaimed

The apparitions that claim to be dead loved ones returned are not the dead at all, for the dead know nothing, and Scripture's teaching on death exposes them as spirits of devils working miracles to prove false words true. They come to God's people with familiar look, sympathy and affection, professing to bring communication from the dead while teaching unscriptural doctrines such as that the Sabbath has been changed. Their miracles, healings and appeals to human affection are meant to support dangerous heresies and lead people astray, and holding present truth from the Bible is what prepares the saints to withstand them and stand firm against this widespread delusion. Seeking communication with the dead and dealing with familiar spirits is an abomination solemnly forbidden under penalty of death, and modern Spiritualism with its millions of adherents even in science, churches, legislatures and courts is witchcraft revived in new disguise. God will protect faithful people who know this truth, defend their hope from Scripture with meekness and reverence, and seek wisdom from Him rather than allow them to be deceived.

Just before the great day of God, which is just ahead and just before us, a warning message calls people back to loyalty to God's law and the Sabbath. The change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first is a breach in God's law, and the message repairs that breach by teaching and example. The plagues of God are already falling at the end of all things in awful calamities by sea and land, sweeping away costly structures as if by fire from heaven to make the world take heed, professing Christians come to their senses, and sinners afraid and trembling before Him. God will not interfere to protect the property of those who transgress His law, break His covenant, and trample upon His Sabbath by accepting a spurious rest-day in its place. Without this stirring direct appeal to be aroused and made ready for Christ's coming, many souls are left to sign petitions advocating the exaltation and observance of a spurious Sabbath, and will see their error only when too late to be saved.

The world is to be warned and made ready for that coming day and its battle through the third angel's message, which bears the seal of the living God and is the last message of mercy. The warning work of sharing truth prepares people for the day about to break upon the world, when demonic miracle-working spirits gather the rulers of the earth and the whole world. Preparation requires teaching that gives a clear, certain sound, distinguishing between obedience and disobedience and between the sacred and the common and putting God where He should be. Teaching that exalts men, makes no difference between the circumcised and the uncircumcised or between the obedient and the disobedient, and places man where God should be gives the trumpet an uncertain sound and leaves men unprepared for that battle.

Watching and Standing Ready

The warning placed immediately after the gathering is to watch and keep garments, to remain clothed in Christ's righteousness and not be found spiritually naked and exposed to shame, for Christ comes as a thief and those who watch are blessed. Everything is now ripening for the great day of God, so eternal vigilance is the price of safety and keeping God's requirements is even more essential now than in Israel's time, with failure to heed them producing a wrong condition. Vigilance against Satan's deceptive devices is especially essential as events ripen toward that day, when a miracle-working power goes out to gather the world's rulers and peoples for the final conflict against God's law, including the exaltation of Sunday observance over God's Sabbath.

The great day of God Almighty is a day of divine judgment just upon the world and near at hand, and its nearness gives the Advent hope of Christ's soon coming a solemn urgency. Prophecies are being fulfilled and the final conflict will be short and decisive, with old controversies revived. The evidence of Christ's soon coming is present, with iniquity abounding everywhere and the love of many waxed cold, yet many are asleep and do not half gather up the important truths written for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. Everything is clothed with solemnity and the swiftly passing moments must be understood as passing into eternity, with a people to be made ready to stand and the watchman to know the time of night, and all who believe the truth to feel, sense, and act in reference to that great day rather than move in haphazard ways. Lukewarm people who have only a form of godliness may feel neither alarm nor joy at its approach because its reality and the eternal reward of the faithful do not impress them.

Its nearness must be recognized and people must be prepared and enabled to stand when it comes, for it is a day of divine judgment approaching the world. The gathering of the world for the final conflict gives urgency to that work, but does not justify provoking controversy or antagonism toward civil authorities. People everywhere must be warned to prepare without delay by hearing the last message of mercy, identified as the third angel's message, because the world is reaching the limit of impenitence and disregard for God's law. In that day the great men of earth will see that human philosophy and self-trust left them vulnerable to Satan's deception, having rejected God's mercy, the messengers of truth, and the divinity and preexistence of Jesus, and their human reasoning will prove powerless before God. Readiness requires understanding Christ's atoning work and cleansing of the sanctuary, reviewing life and character, seeking the Spirit's aid, following, believing and obeying God's Word, genuine heart work and willing obedience beyond intellect and forms, keeping kingdom and righteousness foremost, and triumphing with the warning message, and the medical missionary work helps prepare people for it.

The remaining probation is the time to work, for the day is so near that the present is the time to act. The world must be warned to get ready by lifting up the banner of truth in places of need rather than drifting into places without the Lord's counsel or approval, including the South and destitute fields and cities, with the last message of mercy to reach people in the South. God's servants tell people the sword is coming and urge them to prepare, and to oppose or nullify the words of these ambassadors is to oppose God, bringing woe upon the one who causes such offense. Teaching must give a certain sound that distinguishes between obedience and disobedience and between the sacred and the common and puts God where He should be, while teaching that exalts men, makes no difference between the circumcised and the uncircumcised, and places man where God should be gives an uncertain sound and leaves men unprepared for that battle. That certain work includes upholding medical missionary and health reform and canvassing work, letting light shine in families and youth, and having ministers present Christ the only refuge.

That day must find none sleeping but wide awake as wise virgins having oil in vessels with lamps, which is grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, while the Captain of the Lord's host stands at the head of the angels of heaven to direct the battle amid solemn events yet to transpire as trumpet after trumpet is sounded and vial after vial is poured out. Many will come up to that time without a shelter and unready, and when the plagues begin to fall they will wring their hands because the hour is too late, therefore the warning now is He is coming, get ready, get ready, and receive the Holy Ghost in order to have shelter. To prepare earnestly believers must hide self in Jesus Christ, show the meekness of Christ in all the churches, and let light shine in words and deeds to reveal truth cherished in the heart. Preparing people to stand in that day is the present work, calling for laboring accordingly, valuing truth above self, depending on God rather than on human strength, wisdom, experience, or busy activity, and working humbly through the grace of Christ and with the Spirit of God. With the whole world stirred and preparing for the final conflict it is time for the churches to awaken by proclaiming God's Word, not trying to compel people to believe or losing time in controversy, and without provoking antagonism toward civil authorities.