REVELATION 16
Vials of Wrath

At the end of chapter 15, the seven angels are coming out of the temple of God carrying seven vials which contain the seven plagues of God’s wrath. These are not the seven last plagues which follow after the seven trumpets but the same exact plagues that are revealed at the sounding of the trumpets. This, of course, happens after the saints have all arrived in heaven where it is impossible for them to be harmed by the Wrath of God.We already looked at the vials as they were compared to the seven trumpets; therefore, we will not spend a lot of time analyzing the specific events a second time. However, we do want to look at a few things.

First of all, just to drive home a point, the seven trumpets and seven vials of Revelation are all listed under, and are a part of, the seventh seal of the book that Jesus opens in heaven. That is the only seal that deals with the Wrath of God in any way. If you try to match the other seals to the trumpets and the vials, you will end up with a confusing mess. We already compared the trumpets and vials to each other, but the same comparison cannot be made with the seven seals.

You’ll notice that each vial that is poured out has a different target area. Starting with the first and progressing to the last, the targets are the earth, the seas, the rivers, the sun, the seat of power of the beast, the Euphrates River and the air. Although the target shifts slightly, the aim is always the same—the punishment of sinners in general but those who serve the beast in particular. If you’ll recall, the vials we are reading about are a part of the Revelation that has been focused on the kingdom of the beast, as opposed to the trumpets which are more global. Every aspect of the lives of those who live in the kingdom of the beast seems to be affected by the judgments God releases on them—the earth they walk on; the water they drink, fish in and navigate; the air they breath, the natural source of life known as the sun; and even the governmental powers they trust in. They have nowhere to turn except to the beast since they have totally rejected God, and that is exactly what they do when they regroup and join forces again as they prepare for the return of Jesus Christ in the air.

Revelation 16:1-7

1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus.

6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgments.

Many people, Christians included, find it very difficult to accept that God would actually allow people to spend eternity in hell. As we read this chapter, we get a crystal clear, undistorted understanding of the unyielding, unrepentant hearts of so many people in this world. One of three things would have to happen for these people to go to heaven. First, God would have to break their wills by force and make them obey Him. However, we can see by the surrounding verses that that doesn’t work. It is repeatedly stated throughout Revelation that the harsh punishment being directed at these sinners does not cause any repentance at all from their evil deeds. Second, God could change their hearts and take away their free wills by His divine power, thus making them nothing more than puppets on a string, obeying God because they have no choice to do otherwise. God’s love toward us is so much greater because of this thing called “free will.” He chose to love us despite our shortcomings and sinfulness, and because He saw what we could be through Him. God wants no less from all of us. He wants us to love Him by our own choosing, because we appreciate Him for who He is and not because He forces us to or because we have no will to do otherwise. God’s third option would be to fill heaven with sinners, making it no different from the earth with all the corruption, lying, murders, adulteries, thefts and other evil that they would bring with them.

It was God’s decision to give us the free will to choose to love, serve and obey Him, or to choose to disobey Him and serve sin. It’s His decision how He will judge those who rebel. As we read on, we notice in verses 9 and 11 that there is no repentance by the people who are the recipients of God’s wrath, and that is why they are the recipients of His wrath. Later in verse 21, we see that men are cursing God for the judgments they receive for their own sins. The only way for God to deal with sinners, whose spirits He created to exist forever and who have made the choice to remain sinners, is to permanently incarcerate them in a place where they are unable to have any effect on the rest of creation. That place of incarceration is hell first and then the Lake of Fire. That is the only way for real peace to ever exist on the earth and in heaven.

Revelation 16:8-16

8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.

9 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.

10 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,

11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

Again, the seventh vial, just like the seventh trumpet, declares the end of the Wrath of God. Babylon is judged and divided into three parts by a great earthquake and the Battle of Armageddon will soon begin and end. The sixth vial shows only the gathering of troops to Armageddon. The actual battle will not take place until the last vial is released in the air. Consequently, Jesus will come riding through the air on a white horse to do battle. Jesus’ arrival is not shown immediately in the release of either the last trumpet or the last vial, but He must come back to complete the wrath and take control of the earth. The events of the final trumpet/vial combination are revealed later in Revelation.

The same thunder, lightnings, earthquake and hail of the seventh trumpet are shown here. Five places in Revelation speak of earthquakes. These are all different earthquakes except for the two that are paralleled between the final trumpet and vial. The first earthquake is in Revelation 6:12 under the sixth seal. It occurs at the same time that the skies become black in anticipation of the arrival of Jesus in the clouds to gather His elect. The second is under the seventh seal in Revelation 8:5 as an angel cast the golden censer filled with fire from the altar of God down to the earth. As this is taking place, the seven angels with the seven trumpets of the Wrath of God are preparing to sound. This is important because the next two earthquakes are revealed under the trumpets as part of the Wrath of God. In Revelation 11:13, we are told that in the same hour the two witnesses are slain, an earthquake topples a tenth of the city of Babylon and kills seven thousand men. The very next verse in that chapter tells us that the second woe ends with that earthshaking event, and the third woe is ready to begin. The final earthquake occurs as a part of the third woe in verse 19 of Revelation 11, which just happens to be the same earthquake we see here under the seventh vial.

Each of these earthquakes mark significant events as when Jesus died on the cross and there was a great earthquake that tore the veil of the temple into two halves, and again when the angel rolled the stone away from Jesus’ tomb to show that He was no longer there. In Revelation, the first earthquake happens at the Rapture of the Church. It may, in fact, be the result of the dead saints rising up out of the ground during the Resurrection, although that is only conjecture. The second one follows immediately on the heels of the first as the Wrath of God is put into motion. The third takes place when the two witnesses are resurrected and raptured sometime close to the end of the Wrath of God. The fourth earthquake signals that the Wrath of God is nearing a conclusion and that Jesus will soon appear a second time in the skies—but this time on a white horse prepared for battle.

Revelation 16:17-21

17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.

20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

Many Christians believe that sinners will be saved during the time of God’s wrath. That is in part due to the confusion over the difference between the Tribulation and the Wrath of God. As we have seen over and over again, the Tribulation and the time of God’s wrath are two separate events. During the Tribulation many people will be saved and many others will fall away. Although there is absolutely no indication of anyone repenting during the time of wrath, there will be survivors who are not slain during the time of God’s wrath who will remain on the earth during the millennium to be ruled over by the Lord and His saints. Perhaps these are the ones who were less proactive in resisting God. They acknowledge the glory and power of God in the things transpiring all around them, but yet, without true repentance and salvation. It may be no more than a begrudged surrender to the fact that God is going to win this battle, and Satan and the Antichrist are on their way to defeat. They no longer try to resist God, and they refuse to join the Antichrist as he continues to maintain his claims of deity. They also refuse to take the Mark of the Beast and join in with those who are congregating in the Middle East at Armageddon to take on the armies of Jesus Christ when they descend from heaven. All those who fight in this war and all those who wear the Mark of the Beast will be destroyed. Everyone else will have a fighting chance because of their refusal to fight. God could be out to destroy all those who serve another god who is an evil aberration of Himself, while those other sinners who love life in the flesh to the point of abuse may end up being spared.

In Daniel 8:12, we are told that the host, or very large multitude of people, who serve the beast cast truth to the ground. Second Thessalonians 2:9-12 declares that they love not the truth but take pleasure in unrighteousness. The second half of Romans, chapter 1, has been included below so that we might see the reasons God judges the earth. In verses 19-21 and 28, we see that God has not only put inside all of us a deep understanding of Himself and who He is, but in verse 32, we find that He has also put in us the knowledge of His judgment against all those who commit sins against the goodness of His creation.

Romans 1:18-32

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

20 For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

As we saw earlier when we compared the trumpets and the vials, one third of the earth will be judged more harshly than the rest of the earth. That part of the earth is centered around Israel in the Middle East, North Africa and possibly Russia. Despite the fact that sin is rampant all around the globe and people choose to seek after the pleasures of sin, only one third will follow after the Antichrist as their god. Just like the one third of the angels that followed Satan in his fall, only one third of the earth will become so irrational and corrupt in their thinking that they would willingly serve a god with all the attributes of Satan. Consequently, that one third of the earth will get clobbered with the brunt of God’s wrath while the other two thirds escape the worst of it. Those that escape are sinners in a very self-centered way to be sure, but that will not compare in magnitude to the god-whoremongers of the latter days in this one third of the earth.Most sinners know who the God of heaven is, and they understand Him to be a God of love. Although they are self-serving, they do have a concept of good and evil, and they do not bow their knees in worship to other gods as do those who worship the Antichrist and the devil that sent him.

Think about it!

­Do the vials of this chapter have to match up exactly with the trumpets of earlier chapters to be speaking of the same events or time frames?

­Who is suffering this wrath?

­Are there any clues that draw us into a particular geographical area?

~Selah~The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’S throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright. Psalms 11:4-7

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