For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
To condemn God's faithful people to death makes persecutors guilty of shedding their blood, and to give them blood to drink in return is deserved repayment by which divine justice is cleared. These plagues are the coming full outpouring of wrath upon the living wicked just before Jesus returns, falling after His intercession in the sanctuary ends and mercy no longer pleads, leaving no shelter or respite for the guilty. They come when contempt for God's law has reached its limit, falling on those who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark, while unfaithful shepherds who misled their flocks suffer them even more severely. The torments enrage the wicked against the righteous whom they blame for the judgments, leading to a decree to kill the saints, yet God spreads a covering over His people and then delivers them while the unrighteous are destroyed. The written word shows how to escape, so careful study and obedience to God's law including His Sabbath become matters of life and death, and now is the time to get ready and be hid with Christ until the desolation passes.
Meaning And Justice
To condemn God's people to death brings the guilt of shedding their blood just as surely as if the condemners had slain them with their own hands. The plague of turning waters to blood is a just judgment upon those who have shed the blood of saints and prophets. To be given blood to drink is the fitting retribution, for they are worthy of it, and by it justice is vindicated.
God keeps a reckoning of the sum of guiltiness of every nation. He will vindicate His honor by coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. He will cause the earth to disclose her blood and no more cover her slain, giving blood to drink to those who are worthy because they shed blood.
To pour out the vials of wrath to destroy a rebellious world would be righteous judgment for the extermination of rebellion. The unfallen worlds would answer Amen to the righteousness of God in exterminating rebellion. Before Christ's first advent, when refusal to conform to God's law had become widespread and opposition to heaven had grown determined, heaven waited for the bidding to pour out the vials of wrath, and one word would have destroyed the world. Instead of sending destruction by fire or flood, God gave His only-begotten Son to save and not to condemn.
Time And Sequence
The plagues to which the giving of blood to drink belongs are the future outpouring of the full measure of God's wrath upon the living wicked before Jesus comes, falling just before and at the deliverance of the saints as the plagues on Egypt immediately before Israel's deliverance from bondage foreshadowed that timing and deliverance. They come when Christ's priestly work in the heavenly sanctuary is finished and He executes judgment, falling on living people distinct from those who will die beforehand and from those who will remain alive to be translated at His coming. Some now alive will be subjects of those plagues.
They fall after Jesus finishes His work in the sanctuary and in the most holy place, finishes intercession, lays off priestly attire and clothing for garments of vengeance, steps out from between the Father and man and from between God and humanity, and after the angel of mercy leaves the world and the four angels release the winds they hold until the sanctuary work is done. The wrath cannot come while Jesus is still interceding for Israel, and Michael has not yet stood up and the time of trouble such as never was has not yet commenced. During the plagues the wicked blame the saints for God's judgments and issue a decree to kill them, the saints cry day and night for deliverance, and they are delivered by God's voice.
When they fall there is no atoning blood to cleanse the guilty, no intercession, no further appeal for mercy, and no period of respite until the end, with the wicked who rejected salvation and despised God's people facing judgment though many then want life and ask how to escape having chosen too late. They are the bolts of God's wrath falling as a gathering storm to punish transgressors and the inhabitants of the world for sin and iniquity, when sin, shame, sorrow and darkness are on every side and God's patience and mercy will no longer wait. Only those sanctified through the truth in the love of God will stand, hid with Christ in God until the desolation is overpast.
They come vial after vial upon the inhabitants of the earth, after trumpet after trumpet is sounded one after another, in the future day of judgment and day of wrath that Ezekiel saw as slaughter and Esdras saw as famine, pestilence and the sword, when the Lord puts on garments of vengeance to repay His adversaries. The anger of the nations, the wrath of God, and the time to judge the dead are separate events one following the other. These judgments on the living wicked are not the final execution of judgment, which takes place at the second death after which God makes all things new and the Devil, his angels and all the wicked are burned up.
Some living in 1856 would live to face the seven last plagues, while others of the same generation would die beforehand and rest until the sleeping saints awake to immortality, and still others would be translated to heaven at the second coming without seeing death. Drops and sprinklings from the vials are already falling in awful calamities by sea with vessels hurled into eternity without warning, and by land with fire consuming hoarded riches and costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven, with unusually destructive fires, earthquakes burying cities and villages, terrible railway accidents, tornadoes and floods, and disease in the air vitiated with deadly miasma so that vegetable life is affected and man suffers pestilences such as cholera and unexplainable diseases and diphtheria gathering its harvest of little ones. These present disasters on land and sea and air are only faint representations, faint forewarnings and premonitory convulsions warning of greater mortality, greater crimes, weeping and woe, more earthquakes and terrible shocks rending the earth's crust, and ruin of lordly palaces and hoarded wealth to follow in the near future, not the full outpouring yet to come, showing prophecy in Revelation 12-18 rapidly fulfilling with the end at hand and the last crisis approaching with pestilence, famine and death as signs of Christ's coming.
Cause And Targets
The vials fall upon a godless world when contempt for God's law and the swellings of unrighteousness reach their appointed limit and a fearful pass. Men have made void God's law, prostrated it and trampled it underfoot, making human laws supreme, exceeding the bounds God prescribed, rushing beyond the limits of His grace, and exhausting His wonderful forbearance. In deep hatred to God they shed blood through war and bloodshed and rebellion against His law, conspiring to destroy the champions of God and truth and denouncing as traitors any who return to God and keep His commandments. God keeps a reckoning of the sum of guiltiness of every nation, and He will vindicate His honor by coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, causing the earth to disclose her blood and no more cover her slain, giving blood to drink to those who are worthy because they shed the blood of saints and prophets.
The judgments fall because people transgress God's law, break His covenant, and trample His Sabbath by accepting in its place a spurious rest day with no sanctity commanded in Scripture. Much hoarded wealth has been accumulated by oppression of the poor, so the Lord will not interfere to protect the property of such transgressors. Vessels are hurled into eternity without warning by sea, and by land fire consumes hoarded riches and sweeps away the most costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven.
They fall on the ungodly who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark, bringing suffering with no deliverance. Before they fall God draws a covering over His people to shelter them, and those left without that shelter, the shelterless wicked, face the outpouring of wrath. They fall on kings and nobles and rich and poor alike in that godless world. Those who cannot recognize the signs of the times in a wicked generation are counted among those who perish under them. They are poured out after ministers and people have been called out of the fallen churches and the honest have taken their stand with the remnant.
False shepherds who lead their followers to death will suffer the plagues until God's purposes are complete. Ministers who failed to warn will suffer God's wrath even more severely than the people, ten times more severely. In that scene the wicked endure terrible agony and turn in anger against their families and ministers for keeping them from the truth, while the false shepherds acknowledge that God loved the saints because they held fast to the truth and kept His commandments, and the unrighteous are destroyed from the earth.
Suffering And Deliverance
The seven last plagues bring terrible agony upon the ungodly with no deliverance and no shelter for those left without God's covering. Though many then want life and ask how to escape, they have chosen too late, because intercession has ended and there is no atoning blood left to cleanse the guilty. Many come up to that time unready and without shelter, and when the plagues begin to fall the unready wring their hands, for the hour is too late.
The plagues enrage the wicked against the righteous, whom they blame for bringing God's judgments upon the earth. They think that ridding the earth of the saints will stay the plagues, and therefore issue a decree to kill them. This brings the time of Jacob's trouble, in which the saints cry day and night for deliverance until they are freed by the voice of God.
In their suffering the wicked turn in anger against their families and ministers for keeping them from the truth. Those who stood in the way of God's work hear sinners reproach them, and their hearts fail them. The ministers who failed to warn suffer God's wrath even more severely than the people, ten times more severely.
Before the plagues fall God draws a covering over His people to shelter them, while those left without that shelter face the wrath. He then delivers the sheltered saints by His voice from the decree of death, and the 144,000 triumph with faces lighted up by His glory. The false shepherds who led their followers to death suffer the plagues until God's purposes are complete, then acknowledge that God loved the saints because they held fast to the truth and kept His commandments, and the unrighteous are destroyed from the earth.
Warning And Readiness
The written word tells how to escape the plagues, and those who neglect it will be judged by that same word in the last day and held accountable. The warning about the seven last plagues, God's wrath against the ungodly who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark, brings suffering with no deliverance to those who have no shelter, and therefore makes careful study of God's word and obedience to His law, including the holy Sabbath, a matter of life and death. Its symbols and figures require close, prayerful study and must be given no false meaning, for people must understand them in order to shape their course of action and avoid receiving the plagues. Understanding Revelation is necessary to shape one's actions so as not to receive them.
God permits these judgments to come that the world may take heed, that sinners may be afraid and tremble before Him, and to bring professing Christians to their senses. They are already falling in awful calamities by sea, with vessels hurled into eternity without warning, and by land, with fire consuming riches men have hoarded, much of it accumulated by oppression of the poor, sweeping away the most costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven. The Lord will not interfere to protect the property of those who transgress His law, break His covenant, and trample upon His Sabbath by accepting in its place a spurious rest day with no sanctity commanded in Scripture. God permits the judgments to warn the world and to awaken sinners to fear Him.
God still holds out to men the precious privilege of exchanging darkness for light, error for truth, and sin for righteousness, but His patience and mercy will not always wait. Its fulfillment comes when the angel of mercy leaves the world and the seven last plagues are poured out, when sin, shame, sorrow, and darkness are on every side. Only those sanctified through the truth in the love of God will stand, hid with Christ in God until the desolation is overpast. Many will come up to the falling of the plagues unready and without a shelter, and when the plagues begin to fall the unready will wring their hands when the hour is too late, so the warning now is to get ready and receive the Holy Ghost.
The judgments the Lord is now sending upon the earth show how fast the last great crisis is approaching and have special meaning, calling for less strife and contention and more thought about the nearness of the end. Those who claim these judgments have no special meaning will soon be forced to understand what they now choose not to understand. These scenes of stupendous interest, with trumpet after trumpet sounded and vial after vial poured out one after another upon the inhabitants of the earth, are right upon us and are sure indications of the presence of Christ who has directed in every aggressive movement, who has accompanied the march of His cause through all the ages, and who has pledged to be with His people in all their conflicts to the end of the world. He will vindicate His truth and cause it to triumph, and He will supply His faithful ones with motives and power of purpose, inspiring them with hope and courage and valor in increased activity as the time is at hand.
To condemn God's faithful people to death makes persecutors guilty of shedding their blood, and to give them blood to drink in return is deserved repayment by which divine justice is cleared.
These plagues are the coming full outpouring of wrath upon the living wicked just before Jesus returns, falling after His intercession in the sanctuary ends and mercy no longer pleads, leaving no shelter or respite for the guilty.
They come when contempt for God's law has reached its limit, falling on those who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark, while unfaithful shepherds who misled their flocks suffer them even more severely.
The torments enrage the wicked against the righteous whom they blame for the judgments, leading to a decree to kill the saints, yet God spreads a covering over His people and then delivers them while the unrighteous are destroyed.
The written word shows how to escape, so careful study and obedience to God's law including His Sabbath become matters of life and death, and now is the time to get ready and be hid with Christ until the desolation passes.
Meaning And Justice
To condemn God's people to death brings the guilt of shedding their blood just as surely as if the condemners had slain them with their own hands. The plague of turning waters to blood is a just judgment upon those who have shed the blood of saints and prophets. To be given blood to drink is the fitting retribution, for they are worthy of it, and by it justice is vindicated.
God keeps a reckoning of the sum of guiltiness of every nation. He will vindicate His honor by coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. He will cause the earth to disclose her blood and no more cover her slain, giving blood to drink to those who are worthy because they shed blood.
To pour out the vials of wrath to destroy a rebellious world would be righteous judgment for the extermination of rebellion. The unfallen worlds would answer Amen to the righteousness of God in exterminating rebellion. Before Christ's first advent, when refusal to conform to God's law had become widespread and opposition to heaven had grown determined, heaven waited for the bidding to pour out the vials of wrath, and one word would have destroyed the world. Instead of sending destruction by fire or flood, God gave His only-begotten Son to save and not to condemn.
Time And Sequence
The plagues to which the giving of blood to drink belongs are the future outpouring of the full measure of God's wrath upon the living wicked before Jesus comes, falling just before and at the deliverance of the saints as the plagues on Egypt immediately before Israel's deliverance from bondage foreshadowed that timing and deliverance. They come when Christ's priestly work in the heavenly sanctuary is finished and He executes judgment, falling on living people distinct from those who will die beforehand and from those who will remain alive to be translated at His coming. Some now alive will be subjects of those plagues.
They fall after Jesus finishes His work in the sanctuary and in the most holy place, finishes intercession, lays off priestly attire and clothing for garments of vengeance, steps out from between the Father and man and from between God and humanity, and after the angel of mercy leaves the world and the four angels release the winds they hold until the sanctuary work is done. The wrath cannot come while Jesus is still interceding for Israel, and Michael has not yet stood up and the time of trouble such as never was has not yet commenced. During the plagues the wicked blame the saints for God's judgments and issue a decree to kill them, the saints cry day and night for deliverance, and they are delivered by God's voice.
When they fall there is no atoning blood to cleanse the guilty, no intercession, no further appeal for mercy, and no period of respite until the end, with the wicked who rejected salvation and despised God's people facing judgment though many then want life and ask how to escape having chosen too late. They are the bolts of God's wrath falling as a gathering storm to punish transgressors and the inhabitants of the world for sin and iniquity, when sin, shame, sorrow and darkness are on every side and God's patience and mercy will no longer wait. Only those sanctified through the truth in the love of God will stand, hid with Christ in God until the desolation is overpast.
They come vial after vial upon the inhabitants of the earth, after trumpet after trumpet is sounded one after another, in the future day of judgment and day of wrath that Ezekiel saw as slaughter and Esdras saw as famine, pestilence and the sword, when the Lord puts on garments of vengeance to repay His adversaries. The anger of the nations, the wrath of God, and the time to judge the dead are separate events one following the other. These judgments on the living wicked are not the final execution of judgment, which takes place at the second death after which God makes all things new and the Devil, his angels and all the wicked are burned up.
Some living in 1856 would live to face the seven last plagues, while others of the same generation would die beforehand and rest until the sleeping saints awake to immortality, and still others would be translated to heaven at the second coming without seeing death. Drops and sprinklings from the vials are already falling in awful calamities by sea with vessels hurled into eternity without warning, and by land with fire consuming hoarded riches and costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven, with unusually destructive fires, earthquakes burying cities and villages, terrible railway accidents, tornadoes and floods, and disease in the air vitiated with deadly miasma so that vegetable life is affected and man suffers pestilences such as cholera and unexplainable diseases and diphtheria gathering its harvest of little ones. These present disasters on land and sea and air are only faint representations, faint forewarnings and premonitory convulsions warning of greater mortality, greater crimes, weeping and woe, more earthquakes and terrible shocks rending the earth's crust, and ruin of lordly palaces and hoarded wealth to follow in the near future, not the full outpouring yet to come, showing prophecy in Revelation 12-18 rapidly fulfilling with the end at hand and the last crisis approaching with pestilence, famine and death as signs of Christ's coming.
Cause And Targets
The vials fall upon a godless world when contempt for God's law and the swellings of unrighteousness reach their appointed limit and a fearful pass. Men have made void God's law, prostrated it and trampled it underfoot, making human laws supreme, exceeding the bounds God prescribed, rushing beyond the limits of His grace, and exhausting His wonderful forbearance. In deep hatred to God they shed blood through war and bloodshed and rebellion against His law, conspiring to destroy the champions of God and truth and denouncing as traitors any who return to God and keep His commandments. God keeps a reckoning of the sum of guiltiness of every nation, and He will vindicate His honor by coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, causing the earth to disclose her blood and no more cover her slain, giving blood to drink to those who are worthy because they shed the blood of saints and prophets.
The judgments fall because people transgress God's law, break His covenant, and trample His Sabbath by accepting in its place a spurious rest day with no sanctity commanded in Scripture. Much hoarded wealth has been accumulated by oppression of the poor, so the Lord will not interfere to protect the property of such transgressors. Vessels are hurled into eternity without warning by sea, and by land fire consumes hoarded riches and sweeps away the most costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven.
They fall on the ungodly who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark, bringing suffering with no deliverance. Before they fall God draws a covering over His people to shelter them, and those left without that shelter, the shelterless wicked, face the outpouring of wrath. They fall on kings and nobles and rich and poor alike in that godless world. Those who cannot recognize the signs of the times in a wicked generation are counted among those who perish under them. They are poured out after ministers and people have been called out of the fallen churches and the honest have taken their stand with the remnant.
False shepherds who lead their followers to death will suffer the plagues until God's purposes are complete. Ministers who failed to warn will suffer God's wrath even more severely than the people, ten times more severely. In that scene the wicked endure terrible agony and turn in anger against their families and ministers for keeping them from the truth, while the false shepherds acknowledge that God loved the saints because they held fast to the truth and kept His commandments, and the unrighteous are destroyed from the earth.
Suffering And Deliverance
The seven last plagues bring terrible agony upon the ungodly with no deliverance and no shelter for those left without God's covering. Though many then want life and ask how to escape, they have chosen too late, because intercession has ended and there is no atoning blood left to cleanse the guilty. Many come up to that time unready and without shelter, and when the plagues begin to fall the unready wring their hands, for the hour is too late.
The plagues enrage the wicked against the righteous, whom they blame for bringing God's judgments upon the earth. They think that ridding the earth of the saints will stay the plagues, and therefore issue a decree to kill them. This brings the time of Jacob's trouble, in which the saints cry day and night for deliverance until they are freed by the voice of God.
In their suffering the wicked turn in anger against their families and ministers for keeping them from the truth. Those who stood in the way of God's work hear sinners reproach them, and their hearts fail them. The ministers who failed to warn suffer God's wrath even more severely than the people, ten times more severely.
Before the plagues fall God draws a covering over His people to shelter them, while those left without that shelter face the wrath. He then delivers the sheltered saints by His voice from the decree of death, and the 144,000 triumph with faces lighted up by His glory. The false shepherds who led their followers to death suffer the plagues until God's purposes are complete, then acknowledge that God loved the saints because they held fast to the truth and kept His commandments, and the unrighteous are destroyed from the earth.
Warning And Readiness
The written word tells how to escape the plagues, and those who neglect it will be judged by that same word in the last day and held accountable. The warning about the seven last plagues, God's wrath against the ungodly who worship the beast and its image and receive its mark, brings suffering with no deliverance to those who have no shelter, and therefore makes careful study of God's word and obedience to His law, including the holy Sabbath, a matter of life and death. Its symbols and figures require close, prayerful study and must be given no false meaning, for people must understand them in order to shape their course of action and avoid receiving the plagues. Understanding Revelation is necessary to shape one's actions so as not to receive them.
God permits these judgments to come that the world may take heed, that sinners may be afraid and tremble before Him, and to bring professing Christians to their senses. They are already falling in awful calamities by sea, with vessels hurled into eternity without warning, and by land, with fire consuming riches men have hoarded, much of it accumulated by oppression of the poor, sweeping away the most costly structures as if by a breath of fire from heaven. The Lord will not interfere to protect the property of those who transgress His law, break His covenant, and trample upon His Sabbath by accepting in its place a spurious rest day with no sanctity commanded in Scripture. God permits the judgments to warn the world and to awaken sinners to fear Him.
God still holds out to men the precious privilege of exchanging darkness for light, error for truth, and sin for righteousness, but His patience and mercy will not always wait. Its fulfillment comes when the angel of mercy leaves the world and the seven last plagues are poured out, when sin, shame, sorrow, and darkness are on every side. Only those sanctified through the truth in the love of God will stand, hid with Christ in God until the desolation is overpast. Many will come up to the falling of the plagues unready and without a shelter, and when the plagues begin to fall the unready will wring their hands when the hour is too late, so the warning now is to get ready and receive the Holy Ghost.
The judgments the Lord is now sending upon the earth show how fast the last great crisis is approaching and have special meaning, calling for less strife and contention and more thought about the nearness of the end. Those who claim these judgments have no special meaning will soon be forced to understand what they now choose not to understand. These scenes of stupendous interest, with trumpet after trumpet sounded and vial after vial poured out one after another upon the inhabitants of the earth, are right upon us and are sure indications of the presence of Christ who has directed in every aggressive movement, who has accompanied the march of His cause through all the ages, and who has pledged to be with His people in all their conflicts to the end of the world. He will vindicate His truth and cause it to triumph, and He will supply His faithful ones with motives and power of purpose, inspiring them with hope and courage and valor in increased activity as the time is at hand.