The First Bowl: Painful Sores

RV199-02

Literal Interpretation

When we come to the 16th chapter of Revelation, many commentators go off into spiritualizing the words. They look at this, and they say, "No, there cannot come upon the face of the earth the situation where all humanity is faced with all saltwater areas turned to coagulated blood. That is beyond human imagination. That's too staggering to the mind. That cannot be. That must be a symbol for something. No, it cannot be that every freshwater area on the face of the earth will turn to blood. That can't happen. Can you imagine what kind of a world this would be if that happened?" So, on and on, through these plagues, people say, "This can't be real." This is only a symbol for something.

Of course, once you get away from literal interpretation, you go crazy with what you come up with as the meaning in terms of symbols. No, we're talking about reality. These plagues are going to be as literal as they were in Egypt. When these people stand on their freshwater areas, and suddenly discover that they have turned to blood, it's going to be the same experience as the people stood on the edge of the Nile River, and they looked, and they saw the dead fish rising to the surface, and the horrible putrefying smell of this decaying marine life. And they're going to shake their heads in amazement. It happened, and it's going to happen again.

God's Wrath

What is the reason for God's wrath against mankind? This is the culmination of everything that people have been doing since Adam's time, such that God would do such a thing. For the moment, let's move back to Romans 1:18. The apostle Paul begins this book with a declaration concerning the need for salvation, and the need for the gospel message. In verse 17, he points out the need for a righteousness that comes from God for anybody to go to heaven: "For in it (that is, in the gospel of the grace of God), the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "But the righteous man shall live by faith." This was the great illuminating verse that helped Martin Luther understand that the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church were taking him into hell, because they were human efforts. But if he would trust in what Christ had done upon the cross, he would go home free, and he'd be safe, and he would enter heaven.

Then in verse 18, Paul says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." The "for" refers back to verse 17. It introduces an alternative to believing the gospel and receiving absolute righteousness from God. Most people will not do verse 17. Most people in the human race will do verse 18. They will reject the offer of verse 17. Consequently, having rejected the offer of verse 17 (free grace salvation), they will come under the wrath of God.

Wrath

What Paul is referring to here is the basic antagonism of God toward violation of the moral code. The "orge" of God is more lasting in nature because it stems from a mental attitude, while "thumos" is just a momentary explosion. The word "orge" expresses the indignation of the mind of God against those who have rejected His absolute righteousness and His justice, and who have rejected the Word of God.

Let's get it straight. You have an angry God who has a mental attitude of intense indignation against those who violate His moral laws. Only a fool would ignore that. Only a society that's bent on its self-destruction would ignore the fact that they must conduct themselves in the presence of God, who has a mindset of anger against violation of His moral code and His laws of divine establishment. It is the wrath of God.

Some people are disturbed by such an idea – that God could have this kind of a mental attitude, because the Bible very clearly tells us that God is love. He just doesn't act in love. He just is love in its character. But God's love, you remember, is not free to express itself until His justice has been satisfied toward evil, and payment has been made. God's love cannot be expressed until absolute righteousness has been established. The only reason God loves us is because He has given us His absolute righteousness. That is the target of His love. Without the absolute righteousness of God, there's nothing in us to love, and His love is not directed toward us. What is directed toward us is His mental attitude wrath.

So, propitiation of God must come before His love can be expressed. Propitiation is the satisfaction toward evil. The price must be paid. Love will do what is right if it is genuine.

So, unbelievers cannot be received into heaven until their sin has been covered. God Himself cannot compromise His love by ignoring people who violate His code.

So, this mental attitude anger of God (indignation toward evil) is revealed. This is a word that means something is uncovered. It is something that has been hidden. God's wrath is made clear in a variety of ways. He makes clear in the Bible the condemnation that He expresses toward those who violate His laws. He makes it clear through the death of Christ – the price that was necessary for the Son of God to pay with His own life on the cross for the sins of the world to satisfy God's justice (Matthew 27:46, 1 John 2:2). God's patience is like a dam to His wrath, until it is loosed upon Christ on the cross (Acts 17:30). All of God's wrath was held back. When Christ hung on that cross, the dam broke, and all of His wrath was exercised against His Son. This was wrath which should have been exercised against you and me. For that reason, we escaped that wrath. Even the world of nature has come under that curse and the wrath of God.

This word "reveal" stands first in the Greek sentence. That tells us that it's the important point that God wants to make: "I've told you, I've made things clear. And you must not fall into the trap of people who do not want to hear the truth of God. When you say something that is a principle of Scripture, have you noticed how people who are negative will quote a majority who disapproves? This is their favorite trick. When you quote a statement of Scripture, they say, "Well, so many preachers have a different view about that." What are they suggesting? They're suggesting that all you idiot Christians can't read the words of the Bible and see what it says. They think that it has some secret meaning, and all these smart, educated preachers have a dissenting view: "Therefore, you must be wrong too." Don't let yourself be intimidated by the fact that you have been taught a framework of Scripture (of doctrine), and you know what fits and what doesn't. You're capable of reading the Word of God, and you understand the meaning of the words. The more your framework of doctrine has been built up, the easier it is for you to read the Scripture and put it together.

So, God's wrath has been made clear. It has been stated in the Bible. It has been demonstrated in what He did to Christ on the cross to pay for sin. It's been demonstrated by the curse that resides upon nature. It is clear and certain to mankind that God is angry with sin, and He has made this declaration from heaven. This is not some old sin nature expression. God, from His heaven, has spoken to us.

That's another thing that you should not be intimidated by. The negative opponents of the Word of God are always trying to make you think that you don't really know anything for sure about spiritual things. Even if they'll admit that God is out there, they're trying to make you think that He has been silent. They're trying to make you think that He has spoken, but what He has said is not clear. That's not true. You know that that's not true. Only those who are determinately rebellious against the Word of God try to play that game. God has spoken to us from His holy throne in heaven. So, absolute righteousness and God are the alternative to the wrath that was demonstrated on the cross.

Against Ungodliness

So, God's wrath is, first of all, against those who are in defiance of Him and who disregard Him.

Against Unrighteousness

There's a connection between these two. Unrighteousness is the result of godliness. The two are connected. Why are people unrighteous? Because they're in defiance of God. When ungodliness takes hold of a society, then it rapidly goes down to every imaginable kind of evil. People reject the God of the Bible, so they reject biblical morality. The result is moral decline in a society. It all begins with rejecting the existence of God, and rejecting His authority as the Creator.

There is a reason for the order in which the Holy Spirit has placed these two factors in verse 18. First, we have to acknowledge God, and then our lives can line up with right living. People today have lost God-consciousness because they have ignored the Word of God. The greater our respect for God, the more we recognize our sins, and His uncommon grace to those who are penitent. So, because people are ungodly, they become unrighteous. Ungodliness (that defiance of God) inevitably leads to unrighteousness. The primary way that you defy God is to ignore the Bible: not to learn it; not to study it; not to find what it has to say is the manual on living; and, not to be in a church service where you're going to be taught what's inside that book. Every time you absent yourself from a church service without good reason is an expression of the defiance of God. Don't forget that. When you defy God, you will go from ungodliness to unrighteousness.

Paul says that this is true of a certain type of men. Why could this happen? How is it that people can be so indifferent toward God so that they act with such unrighteousness? How can they come to such ungodliness so that unrighteousness follows? Well, it's their attitude toward the truth. He says that they "suppress." That is an interesting Greek word. It is actually made up of two words: "katecho." "Echo" means "to have," or "to hold." The preposition "kata" means "to hold down." So, what this "suppressed" means is that they "hold down the truth." They're negative toward divine viewpoint. This word "suppressed" goes with the word "men." Men suppress the truth. Preachers who do not teach their congregation the doctrines of Scripture are suppressing the truth. Their people who go from ungodliness to unrighteousness, inevitably, when that happens.

People who suppress the truth will act accordingly when it comes to making major decisions for themselves personally, and for their society, and for the national well-being. These people suppress the truth about salvation; the truth about Jesus Christ; and, most of all, the truth about the character of God – His essence. When you suppress that, the result is going to be unrighteousness. These people suppress this in unrighteousness; that is, by means of unrighteousness. What they do is they practice evil, and thus they suppress the truth of god. The truth of God is what should be dignified and promoted.

Magic Johnson is an unmitigated fool. He's on death row, and he still carries on as if he himself is not guilty of having committed an act of unrighteousness because of his personal ungodliness. Now, he is suppressing the truth about the terrible disease he has, and about what he has been engaged in and thus is expressing his own contempt for God. He is one of these men who suppress the truth by his own righteousness. He has not come to the point where he is acting with the admission of the truth of the guilt that is upon him. I'm just waiting, now that he's back playing professional basketball. I'm just waiting to see one of his teammates come down with AIDS because of a body contact that transmitted his saliva, or his sweat, or maybe even a break in the skin that brought blood contact. I'm just waiting.

What do you think the news media and the world is going to do then. The news media in this country is the prime factor of suppressing the truth? These are the ungodly men in our society. They are brainless, talking-heads that you see on television. Have you ever seen them? You just see this brainless head, and it talks to you. They are parrots who read what their masters have written for them to slant the news and to suppress the truth. They give you ungodliness as their frame of reference, so that you will act in unrighteousness when it comes to making your choice.

That's what makes God mad. That's the reason for the wrath of God. Paul makes it beautifully clear here that it's a chain reaction. If you suppress the truth, the result is that you will begin acting in an ungodly way. You suppress the truth. You go to godliness – a contempt and disrespect for God; and, then you go to unrighteousness. You suppress the truth; you go to godliness; and, then you go to unrighteousness. It's an inevitable chain reaction. Here we have the national media which is controlled by these people who suppress the truth, and we can't do a thing about it. Christians can only sound forth, and say, "You're wrong," and Christians can only intercede with Almighty God that His sovereign purpose be executed.

The future of the United States is going to go in one of two directions. One is that this country is going to continue in some viable form right up until the rapture. When the Christians are taken out, that's when the country will collapse and deteriorate. Or, the scenario may be that, even while we Christians are here, the downward spiral of righteousness is going to rapidly take its effect, and that people will be put in positions of authority who do everything wrong as far as biblical principles (both economic and moral) are concerned, so that even while we Christians are here, we're going to see the United States rapidly deteriorating as a world power. Then, when we Christians are taken out, it will be the coup de grâce to the national well-being and to the national existence.

So, when we come to the Revelation 16:1, we read here that these seven angels have each a bowl that is filled with the wrath of God. This wrath is now going to be poured on the human race as never before, and God's mental attitude anger is now going to explode. It's going to be expressed. The reason for it is what we learned from Romans 1:18. People have suppressed the truth of the Word of God. They have dismissed the Bible. Consequently, they become ungodly. They become disrespectful and contemptuous of God. The result is that they have spiraled into the worst kind of unrighteousness in their conduct.

Don't you find it interesting to see how many people are running around in our society, trying to put together government programs to correct the evils of the old sin nature? And they never ask themselves: how can a social program correct a sin nature problem? And even though it never corrects it, women are still being beaten up by their husbands; parents are still abusing their children; and, lying, and cheating, and sexual immorality, and contempt for human beings still are there. But we're going to get programs to solve these problems. And only those who are out of touch with the Word of God (and the reality of spiritual problems that are at the heart of everything) think: "Let's get a little government program, and we're going to make it work. That has never been true; it is not true; and, to suggest that is to suppress the truth.

John says, "And I heard a loud voice from the temple." The voice he hears is coming from the temple. The word for "temple" here refers to the holy of holies, the inner sanctuary. So, the voice that he hears is the voice of God. We're told that it's a loud voice, because it stresses God's authority to issue this order. He has the right to make this command. This command is directed to the seven angels who are standing by with the seven final plagues of God, and seven bowls filled with the wrath against sin. With every plague that is cast upon the earth, this bowl of wrath is poured out with it. So, the bowl of wrath is God's indignation against being ignored, and against being treated with contempt and disdain, and unrighteousness being tolerated in a society.

A little boy in a school in Florida, in the classroom discussion, mentioned Jesus and God. He was sent to the principal's office. He was told not to say that again, or he would be punished. Another boy talked about Jesus Christ and salvation to his playmates out on the playground. He was reported to the principal. He had been told before not to say things like that on the playground, and he was expelled from his school in Florida.

Do you know what else goes out on those playgrounds? We have a lady who has enrolled a child in Berean Academy. She said, "We were going to try the public school." And she said, "My little daughter is just so horrified by the language of the boys on the playground and the things they say, and the things they suggest. And the principal says, 'Boys will be boys.'" That's right. The old sin nature will be the old sin nature.

Now, if you don't think that you live in a society that has gone mad, then you yourself are crazy. This society has lost touch with every reality, and it has lost touch with every point of decency that God can raise within the human heart. We are under the gun. In just a couple of days, we're going to see how close God is to being ready to make His move against this nation, in large part, for the slaughter of 28 million unborn children whose blood cries out to Him for vengeance.

The voice of God from the holy of Holies has the authority to command the wrath of God now to be poured out by these seven angels. He says to them, "Go. Pout out the seven bowls of the wrath of God into the earth." Now I know what you are going to ask me. I know that you students are all sitting out there quivering for me to tell you which word for "anger" this is. This is not the one we had a little while ago: "orge." That is not that building up of a mental attitude of anger. This time, it is the other one: "thumos." This is the one where God's indignation has been building up within Him. He's been holding back. He's been putting a cap on making a move. And now the time has come when He explodes. This is the explosive wrath of God from pent up indignation against evil. God has come, at the end of the tribulation (and that's what we're talking about), to the end of His longsuffering patience. A holy God has an intense anger toward evil, and He should be feared.

The Bible tells us, therefore, that the beginning of wisdom is what? The fear of God. If you think you're a smart person, you're not until you take a healthy fear of God – a real concern about doing evil, especially when no one else is around to see you, and especially in the inner recesses of your mind, where no one else is there to observe those thoughts. Young people, learn the lesson: the beginning of being smart is to have a healthy fear of God for doing evil.

They are to pour out God's wrath one plague at a time. They're to do this in order, and they're to pour it out upon the earth. We're at the end, perhaps within weeks of the end of the seven-year tribulation period. Evil has now reached a climax all over the world – a world in which a world religion is a major factor. This is a world where the whole world has a religion, and it's all anti-biblical. Religion is prominent. Evil has now reached a climax all over the world. In previous trumpet judgments, some very similar plagues have hit the earth, but only a third of it. This time, because the evil is worldwide, the plagues hit worldwide. I'll tell you one problem that that creates in the moment.

God orders the seven angels now to pour out one-by-one their bows against mankind and each plague. God, the judge of the universe, is now ready to satisfy His justice against the worshipers of antichrist. If you refresh your mind in Revelation 13:14-17, we're told how the false prophet has set up an idol of the antichrist in the Jews' temple in Jerusalem, and has commanded all mankind to worship him, and to pledge their allegiance by taking the mark of the beast upon them.

Environmental Disaster

The First Bowl: Painful Sores

Secondly, it says that it is not only loathsome, but it is "malignant." The Greek word is "poneros." This word connotes "cancerous." It refers to something which is absolutely unresponsive to medical treatment, and it is excruciatingly painful. So, you have something that's loathsome to look at, and which is a cancerous, deadly item. It is called "a sore" (a "helkos"). This is the word in the Greek language for an ulcerated, oozing sore.

So, what we're talking about is all over the body, from head to foot. People suddenly find popping out on them cancerous lesions which are oozing and draining, for which they have no immunity, and for which there is no cure. Gradually, these sores are rotting at the core as they move outward from that center. This is exactly the same type of sore which was found in the sixth plague upon Egypt in Exodus 9:8-11. You can read about it there. This is the same kind of sore that the poor man Lazarus, in Luke 16:20, was suffering from, as he sat at the gate of the rich man. And this is the type of discipline that God has promised to bring upon the Jews if they choose to rebel against Him and His laws in Deuteronomy 28:15-35.

Let's just take a look at that. God said to the Jewish people, "If you disobey Me, if you refuse to be obedient to My laws, I'm going to send upon you that same oozing, cancerous type of malignity." Deuteronomy 28:15: "But it shall come about, if you will not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes (Bible doctrine), with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you." These are the curses which God has already exercised upon heathen nations, and they've seen it.

Now look at Deuteronomy 28:27: "The Lord will smite you with the boils (the sores) of Egypt, and with tumors, and with the scab, and with the itch from which you cannot be healed." These are malignancies.

Look at verse 35: "The Lord will strike you on the knees and legs with sore boils (the same word), from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head." When the Septuagint translators translated the Hebrew into Greek, and they came to this Hebrew word, they used this Greek word. So, we are talking about a special kind of disease for which there is no immunity.

This is the problem for the Indians when Columbus came to this continent, and brought the Europeans with him. The Europeans had diseases. One of the primary ones was smallpox. Europeans were immune to it. The Indians died by the millions. I mean, like overnight, smallpox would sweep through a whole nation, because these people were completely without any physical immunity, and a disease from which you don't have physical immunity can hit and spread overnight like wildfire. People were dying faster in the Indian tribes of this continent than they could bury them, once the Europeans brought their diseases over. This is the kind of thing you're going to have.

Furthermore, this is going to be worldwide. Everybody is going to be suffering from these kind of malignant sores – all unbelievers. So, who's going to be there to take care of you? Many of the Indians in Columbus died because there was nobody to help them. There was nobody to just give them a drink of water, which would have enabled them to survive. When everybody is sick, there's nobody to help. Can you see why people want to spiritualized this? Can you see why Donahue would go crazy to think that God is going to do such a thing as this? A world of people dying with malignant sores?

However, this is a very specialty group. The makes it clear that these loathsome and malignant sores are upon men (human beings). The word "men" there is "anthropos," meaning humanity in general: who had the mark of the beast, and who worshiped his image." This goes upon those who had pledged loyalty to the antichrist. The malignant sores on the tribulation unbelievers who bear the mark of antichrist, and who worship him, are those who have rejected the grace salvation through Jesus Christ. They have doomed themselves to hell.

The believers in the tribulation escape this disease, just as the Jews did in Egypt. God's wrath against the blasphemy of worshiping the antichrist as God is thus expressed, first of all, in this worldwide plague of malignant sores. God uses diseases to punish those who rebelled against His moral laws. That's no secret. And God creates new diseases out of the blue, for which there is no cure, in punishment for violation of His moral laws. Then he transmutes those diseases when people think they have a solution. That's like the AIDS virus today. Out of the blue, God is causing this kind of judgment. He is using disease to punish those who rebel against His moral laws.

Venereal diseases have long been recognized by believers as divine judgments for sexual immorality in violation of God's moral laws. These diseases are hideous in their appearance. They are malignant in their effect. They destroy the individual who's infected with it.

Lenin

I'll bet you don't know how he died, do you? I bet you don't know what his condition was at the end while he was ruling Russia and making decisions, including the orders to kill millions of Russians who would not subject themselves to the communist rule. From an article called "Russia's Changing Symbolism" in "The New American," September 7th, 1992, let me just read you a closing paragraph on the death of Lenin:

"On July 18th of this year, the French daily, Le Figaro, carried a 6-page account of Lenin's horrible death: his brain eaten by syphilis; and, his ghastly screams terrifying neighbors in the little village of Gorky, about 45 miles from Moscow. The account was illustrated by two full-page photos of Lenin with the wild staring eyes of a madman. The best doctors the capitalist world could provide were called in to try to save the despot. True to professional ethics, the foreign doctors remained silent when false reports were released on Lenin's death. It was the Russian doctor, Viktor Petrovich Osipov, who first disclosed the real cause of Lenin's death. But his report was suppressed, and Stalin later had him executed. The power of life and death over millions had been in the hands of an insane syphilitic whose frightening headaches; weeks of insomnia; and, bursts of temper were carefully concealed.

"After Lenin's right side became paralyzed on December 16th, 1922, the decline became more rapid, with days and nights of excruciating pain. He begged his secretary to procure some cyanide, but to keep it secret, and make no entry in his daily report. The secret was never kept. Stalin knew everything, and was waiting and preparing. Gradually, Stalin cut Lenin off from the outside world, and in April, 1923 had himself proclaimed officially in charge of all information concerning Lenin's death. On January 21, 1924, the last agony commenced, and for three days, peasants and neighbors trembled, knowing they were hearing bloodcurdling screams that no one was supposed to hear. On January 24th, death came. A book by Jack London was on the table beside Lenin, but the envelopes marked "Not to be opened until my death" were already in Stalin's hands. The man Franklin D. Roosevelt called "God Old Joe" had thought of everything. He used the cleaned up and retouched corpse of Lenin to perpetuate a myth. Just as Lenin and Trotsky have honored John Reed with a grand funeral and burial in the wall of the Kremlin in order to intoxicate young Americans."

The atheist went out in excruciating pain. But that was nothing to what Lenin discovered when he opened his eyes on the other side in the presence of a holy God – a God who has a mindset of wrath against those who suppress the truth. That is a dangerous thing to do. When you know what is truth from the Bible, you better proclaim it, and if you don't say anything about it, you better act according to it. That is the course of wisdom. You cannot suppress it without paying a horrible price.

So, God uses diseases to punish those who violate His rules. This suffering is compounded by the fact, in the tribulation, that all are infected, and there's no one to help you.

The followers of antichrist, ironically, chose to receive his mark of ownership on them externally, and now God covers them with hideous sores to show their internal corruption. Isn't that ironic? God knows how to do things. These people were so eager to get the mark of the beast upon them so they could do business and prosper? Do you know what one of the fundamental falsehoods of this current campaign is? It is that the economy is the important issue upon which people are to make a decision. Do you know who taught us that? Karl Marx. That is pure-gutted Marxism – that economic determinism is what life is all about. You will be happy; things will be well; things will go properly and enjoyably for your family; and, things will come together for you if you are financially in a good position. That is wrong. Don't ever forget the rich man who had all the money in the world, and God snatched him out after he got his barns full, and it didn't mean a thing. Can you imagine Americans who have lost their way, in that economic determinism of Marxism (that all of Europe is fleeing because it's such a disaster), using that as the basis upon which a national election has been determined? The external sores of internal corruption are going to be seen in our society as well.

As I read this passage, I remember the movie The Portrait of Dorian Gray. You don't even remember it, do you? For those of you uninitiated, and less educated types, The Portrait of Dorian Gray was a story of a young man who had a portrait painted of himself. It was a beautiful portrait because he was so handsome. He had this portrait in his living room area in his stately mansion. People would come by, and they look at that portrait, and they would just admire the portrait of Dorian Gray. But internally, he was an enormously corrupt, vile man, and he was into all kinds of moral conflicts, and all kinds of moral vileness. One day, after one of his escapades, he came up to admire his picture, and he noticed something on the face that looked like a little blotch (a sore). And he tried to brush it off, and he didn't think much about it.

Then, as he continues his evil life, every time he walks into his front room area, he sees some other marks on the face. There's a little distortion now of the eyes. Pretty soon, it became so bad that he took the picture off the wall, and he put it up in the attic, and covered it with a cloth so that no one would see the external marks of evil reflecting his internal corruption. That is right out of Revelation 16. Well, as the movie goes on, and he degenerates more and more, it finally comes to an end where he's killed up in the attic, and the person who is there knows that here's the portrait, and wonders why it's there. He reaches up; pulls the cloth off; and, the whole audience in the theater gasps with one of the most hideous looking faces and creatures you have ever seen. This portrait was drawn by an artist who really outdid himself, because there is Dorian Gray with all the vileness and corruption (that was internal) that was now seen upon him in full evil on the outside.

The sores will be there, and God will ironically be saying, "You wanted to worship the beast. You suppressed the truth about Me. You went from disrespect for me to moral ungodliness, and this is what you have become on the inside. I'm now going to reveal your condition by these malignant sores on the outside.

Now how does the antichrist feel about all this? What is his role? What is his personal situation when this is taking place? I'm glad you asked. Please join us next time as we shall pursue one of the most dramatic parts of this bowl of the wrath of God.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1992

Back to the Revelation index