It is important to read the Bible contextually. Chapter 16  shows how important it is to the read the Bible carefully and in context. It is evident that John’s vision takes the account of the historical fall of Babylon, he relates it backward to the defeat of Pharaoh at the Red Sea, and uses it typologically to predict the fall of a future day Babylonian world system.

At the same time, all the original elements of Babylon’s destruction (the city itself, its king, the river on which it sits, and the manner of its fall) are universalized. If we fail to take all of this in consideration, we can read it all wrong. This leads many contemporary commentators to isolate particular people and places as the site of the last-day warfare, even to the point of predicting a rebuilding of Babylon, which would in fact nullify OT prophetic declarations affirming that Babylon would be decimated by the Persians, never to rise as a world power again.

Isaiah 13:17 Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard silver, and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. 18 And their bows shall dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children. 19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. 21But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance there.

Jeremiah 50:13 Because of the wrath of Jehovah she shall not be inhabited, but she shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

50:39 Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.

The same is true of the mention of Armageddon in v. 16. There is a richness of biblical allusions, which points to a universal reference, yet how many have tried to locate Armageddon as a particular place, focusing on the involvement of ethnic Israel, and thereby missed the main point regarding the nature of the battle as of worldwide extent, and fought between the forces of the enemy and the church.

The reality of demonic activity and our lack of readiness to fight it.

v. 13–14 highlight the activity of unclean spirits coming forth from the devil and his agents, performing signs which influence the kings of the earth and draw them together for war. Because they are identified as frogs, they may be linked with the Egyptian goddess of resurrection, who was symbolized as a frog. The NT is full of accounts of the reality of the kingdom of darkness. Our rationalistic age makes it difficult for us to see with the same eyes as the biblical writers, yet these same age-old forces are still very much at work ( Eph. 6:10–17).

Does part of their deception convey the notion that they do not exist?

Do we really understand how to fight this activity of such forces?

Do we sometimes fight only attitudes or actions they produce, rather than confronting the underlying reality? Our battle is not only against the world’s influence and the influence of our own indwelling sin and the detrimental influence of our old nature on us, but our “struggle is … against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

The cry from the cross and the cry from the throne.

John 19:30  When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

Revelation 16:17And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air; and there came forth a great voice out of the temple, from the throne, saying, It is done

The cry from the throne “It is done” echoes the cry of Jesus from the cross (John 19:30), using the same Greek verb. This can hardly be an accident. Using the analogy of the inauguration of the kingdom through the cross and resurrection, consider how Jesus’ cry set in motion the breaking in of God’s kingdom, yet in such a way that it would only reach fulfillment at the time of the second cry, when there would be not only the final redemption of God’s people (Rev. 21:1–22:5), but the decisive and final judgment of God’s enemies. Could the loud voice uttering the cry belong to Christ Himself?

How is this an encouragement to us as we live in the time in between the two cries?

Revelation 16

16 And I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, Go ye, and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God into the earth.  2 And the first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth; and it became a noisome and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast, and that worshipped his image. 3And the second poured out his bowl into the sea; and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living soul died, even the things that were in the sea.  4 And the third poured out his bowl into the rivers and the fountains of the waters; and it became blood. 5 And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Righteous art thou, who art and who wast, thou Holy One, because thou didst thus judge: 6 for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood hast thou given them to drink: they are worthy. 7 And I heard the altar saying, Yea, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.  8 And the fourth poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given unto it to scorch men with fire. 9 And men were scorched with great heat: and they blasphemed the name of God who hath the power over these plagues; and they repented not to give him glory. 10 And the fifth poured out his bowl upon the throne of the beast; and his kingdom was darkened; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, 11 and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they repented not of their works. 12 And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way might be made ready for the kings that come from the sunrising. 13 And I saw 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, three unclean spirits, as it were frogs: 14for they are spirits of demons, working signs; which go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the 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 they gathered them together into the place which is called in Hebrew Armageddon. 17 And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air; and there came forth a great voice out of the temple, from the throne, saying, It is done: 18 and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men upon the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty. 19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of 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 great hail, every stone about the weight of a talent, cometh down out of heaven upon men: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof is exceeding great.

There are many similarities between these bowls and the trumpet plagues.

The trumpet judgments were calls to repentance; the bowl judgments are visitations of punishment when hope of repentance is passed. The trumpet judgments were partial, touching only a third part of their objects; the bowl judgments are final, touching the whole of the object.

The trumpet judgments did not reach man until the sounding of the fifth trumpet; the bowl judgments fall upon man from the very first. The symbolism of the bowls and that of the trumpets are parallel. There is difference in the symbolism of the fifth in each series, but the thing symbolized is the same. As bowl after bowl is emptied, the judgment increases until finally it reaches the imperial city.

No attempts to determine the special meaning of the objects visited by the wrath of God, land, sea, rivers, and sun, has yet to be successful, or likely will be. The general effect of God’s final retributive wrath alone appears to be important. The bowls are grouped four, two, interlude, and one, just as were the seals and the trumpets.

Why repeat the ominous plague visions? These scenarios are not simple descriptions of future events but warnings that are designed to move the readers of Revelation to repentance and renewed commitment to the ways of God and the Lamb. Although the trumpet plagues warn of disasters that affect a third of the earth, and the bowl plagues portend more complete

judgments on the worshipers of the beast, both consider whether people will repent or refuse to repent in the face of God’s judgment (9:20–21; 16:9, 11, 21).

Unlike the seals of chapter 6 and the trumpets of chapters 8–9, the bowls move relentlessly to a close. They are the final series depicting the outpouring of God’s wrath and as such there is no place for yet another interlude.

There are two expansions within the final series. Following the third bowl plague, in which the inland waters are turned to blood, an angel declares that God’s judgments are just because the inhabitants of the earth have shed the blood of his saints and prophets (vv. 5–7). And following the sixth bowl-plague evil spirits from the mouth of the dragon go out to gather the kings of the whole world for the final battle.

John freely employs the vocabulary of natural disaster to describe the prophetic visions of the imminent and catastrophic denouement of human history. While it is true that both series deal with the same crucial period of time just before the end, overly subtle interpretations in the interest of a plague-by-plague recapitulation overlook the distinct differences between the two series.

1 the trumpet-plagues are partial in their effect (one-third of the earth is burned, 8:7; one-third of the sea becomes blood, 8:8; see also 8:9–12), while the bowls are universal (“every living thing in the sea died,” 16:3; “every island fled away,” 16:20) and final;

2 the trumpets are to a certain extent a call to repentance, while the bowls are the pouring out of divine wrath; and

3 people are affected indirectly by the first four trumpets but are directly attacked from the outset by the bowls.

The bowls are poured out in rapid succession with the customary interlude between the sixth and seventh elements of the sequence missing. The three numbered series are cyclical restatements employing images of greater and greater intensity. Each series brings us to the end, but in each successive case the severity and magnitude of judgment are heightened significantly.

We can review the outline of Revelation 8 to see the parallel between the trumpet judgments and the bowl judgments. In each case, the judgment affects the same things, but the bowl  judgments are more severe. It seems too that the bowl judgments occur in quick succession, aimed especially at the Beast and his satanic kingdom.

The trumpets	Recipient of Judgment	The bowls
8:1–7	The earth	16:1–2
8:8–9	The sea	16:3

8:8–9	The sea	16:3
8:10–11	The rivers	16:4–7
8:12–13	The heavens	16:8–9
9:1–2	Mankind	16:10–11
9:13–21	Army/Euphrates	16:12–16
11:15–19	Nations in wrath	16:17–21

Grievous Sores (16:1–2)

This passage reminds us of the sixth plague of Egypt (Ex. 9:9), when boils broke out on the Egyptians. The word “noisome” (v. 2) comes from an Old English word (similar to “annoy”) that means “troublesome, vexing.” God promised to send Israel this plague if they rebelled against Him (Deut. 28:27, 35); and no doubt the unbelieving Jews will suffer along with the unbelieving Gentiles. Note that these sores still trouble the world when the fifth vial is poured out (v. 11). The affliction did not soften their hearts; men still blasphemed God and refused to bow before Him.

The first angel is dispatched and carries out his awesome task of pouring out the wrath of God upon the followers of the beast. Those who once bore the mark of the beast are now visited by the “marks” of God. We are reminded of the sixth Egyptian plague in which sores in the form of boils and abscesses broke out on people and beasts throughout the land (Exod 9:9–11). Job spoke from experience of the pain and irritation of such afflictions (Job 2:7–8, 13).

The contents of the bowl affect the worshipers of the beast who bear “the mark of the beast” that identifies them with powers opposed to God. Earlier, John learned that those who worshiped the beast’s image would be spared by the beast’s allies, while those who refused to bow down would be killed (13:15).

Where John once saw “the mark of the beast,” he now sees “a foul and painful sore” upon the beast’s followers (16:2). The mark signified willingness to accommodate the coercive practices of the deified ruler, in the hope of escaping affliction, but the mark is now matched by a sore that brings affliction.

Painful though it is, however, the sore that God inflicts upon the followers of the beast is less severe than the death that the beast inflicted upon the followers of the Lamb. Like the sores that came upon the Egyptians before the exodus (Exod. 9:10–11), it presses people to repent of their oppressive practices (Rev. 16:9, 11).

Water to Blood (16:3–7)

v3 The second angel goes to the earth and pours his bowl on the sea, turning it to blood. This parallels the first plague of Exod 7:19ff. in which the waters of Egypt were turned to blood. It also parallels the second trumpet in which a burning mountain fell into the sea, turning it to blood (8:8–9). Note that in all three instances it is water, one of humanity’s basic requirements and of critical importance in the more arid regions of ancient civilization, that is affected by divine judgment. The sea becomes like the blood of a dead person, all sea life dies.

The result raises questions about divine justice. God created the sea and everything in it (14:7), and God’s desire is that all creatures, including those that swarm the seas, should join in a cosmic song of praise to their Maker (5:13). So why should the sea and its creatures die? Revelation does not explain why innocent creatures or innocent people perish.

Here is the real question: Why do the ungodly survive?

Why have God’s judgments not annihilated those who oppress the faithful?

On one level, the vision of the sea turning to blood warns that those who perpetuate injustice will bear the consequences of their deeds. The inhabitants of the earth have shed the blood of the saints (6:10), and now waves of bloody water wash up on their shores.

The beast slew God’s faithful witnesses, leaving their dead bodies in the streets (11:8–9), and now the sea itself assumes the quality of a corpse. The ungodly may not yet have perished, but this plague warns that God’s justice will prevail. If God has spared them it is not because God is indifferent to evil, but that God has granted them the chance to repent, a point that will soon be made explicit (16:9, 11).

The third angel pours a bowl of wrath into the rivers and springs of water, which become as bloody as the sea (16:4). An angel announces that this plague carries out divine justice, declaring that since the wicked have “shed the blood of saints and prophets, you have given them blood to drink. there is, to be sure, a poetic justice in that people who have shed streams of blood are now made to drink from blood-filled streams.

Scorching and Darkness (16:8–11)

The judgments from the fourth and fifth angels involve the heavens. The fourth angel causes the sun to scorch men. This is a sharp contrast with the trumpet judgment in 8:12, where a part of the sun was darkened. In this case, God allows the sun to burn men, to give them, as it were, a foretaste of hell. This is the day Malachi promised would “burn as an oven” (Mal. 4:1–2). Did sinners repent? No! Such is the hardness of the human heart!

The fifth angel brings darkness. It is possible that this darkness covered only the immediate kingdom of the Beast, where his throne, his seat, was located. This darkness parallels the ninth plague of Egypt (Ex. 10:21–23). Satan is the prince of darkness, so it is only right that darkness should invade his kingdom. This is another foretaste of hell. Still, they will not repent. William Newell says, “Men who will not be won by grace will never be won at all.”

The beast received its throne from Satan the dragon (13:2) and then blasphemed God, slaughtered the saints, and demanded allegiance from people of every tribe and nation (13:5–8). God’s angel does not destroy the beast’s kingdom but immerses it in darkness, like the darkness that engulfed Egypt before Israel’s deliverance from bondage (Exod. 10:21). Again, the plague presses people to repent. The vision makes clear that if they refuse to change, it is not because God has prevented it, but because they are firmly allied with the beast (Rev. 16:11).

The issue of repentance is made evident after the fourth angel pours a bowl of wrath on the sun, so that the adversaries of God suffer from fierce heat (16:8). Like previous plagues, this one stops short of destroying the wicked, and John now focuses attention on the issue of how one responds to the plagues. This is the reason that judgments have been interrupted and messengers sent out. The worshipers of the beast, however, refuse to repent and to glorify God (16:9). Their response makes clear that they suffer affliction, yet still refuse to worship God.

These visions present two options: either one joins in giving God the glory, as the heavenly chorus does, or one joins in blaspheming God, as the people do here.

Gathering of the Armies (16:12–16)

How is this an encouragement to us as we live in the time in between the two cries?

The sixth angel pours his bowl on the river Euphrates so that its water dries up. In the past, the waters of the Red Sea parted so that Moses could lead the people of Israel out of Egypt (Exod. 14:21–22), and the Jordan River parted so that Joshua could lead them into the Promised Land (Josh. 3:14–17), but here the waters of the Euphrates dry up “to prepare the way for the kings from the east” (Rev. 16:12). The vision evokes a sense of threat against the powers that oppressed the people of God in different periods (compare Isa. 50:2; Nah. 1:4).

The imagery is not confined to one period of time, but it evokes associations from different times in order to convey a warning about the vulnerability of these oppressive powers.

Before any battle takes place, the seventh angel tosses a bowl of wrath into the air, unleashing lightning, thunder, and hundred-pound hailstones (Rev. 16:17–21). A voice from God’s throne declares, “It is done!” so that at last the judgment of God would appear to be complete. Earlier, an angel condemned Babylon, who made “all nations drink the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (14:8); and now God gives the city “the wine-cup of the fury of his wrath” (16:19).

The world is struck by an earthquake more violent than any that have occurred since the creation of humankind. The earthquake shatters Babylon and the cities of the world collapse into rubble. The islands and the mountains of the world vanish. Yet the comment that concludes this scene of devastation does not focus on the annihilation of the wicked but on their refusal to repent.

If the two plagues unleashed by the previous bowls brought a negative response from the followers of the beast, this bowl brings a negative response from the beast and its closest allies

(Rev. 16:13). Rather than surrendering in light of their coming defeat, the adversaries of God intensify their opposition. Foul spirits that look like frogs—which were regarded as unclean and not to be put into the mouth—come out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, who was formerly depicted as the beast from the land (13:11). In a last-ditch effort to retain their control, these spirits lure the kings of the earth to a place called Armageddon, where they will be prepared for the final great battle on the Day of God Almighty (16:14–16).

Armageddon (16:16)

The word “Armageddon,” in contemporary culture, has become almost synonymous with nuclear warfare and the annihilation of civilization. Popular treatments of Armageddon usually feature missiles with atomic warheads, squadrons of aircraft, and tank brigades colliding in the Middle East. The description of the great battle does not occur until 19:11–21—a passage that strangely omits all references to tanks and missiles. Two questions are important.

Is the name literal or symbolic?

It is clear that when John addresses his readers, he uses the literal names of the cities in which they live: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, and so on (1:11). It is also clear that he uses Hebrew names symbolically when he nicknames his opponents Balak, Balaam, and Jezebel, figures associated with false worship in the Old Testament (2:14, 20).

John uses these symbolic names to tell readers something about the false teachers in their communities. Since John regularly uses Old Testament names in a symbolic rather than a literal sense, it seems evident that “Armageddon”,  might be taken symbolically rather than literally.

What does the name signify?

Old Testament references to Megiddo often link it to battles in which the adversaries of Israel are defeated. Taken together, the associations suggest that Megiddo is a place name that portends the coming destruction of the adversaries of God.

Before any battle takes place, the seventh angel tosses a bowl of wrath into the air, unleashing lightning, thunder, and hundred-pound hailstones (Rev. 16:17–21). A voice from God’s throne declares, “It is done!” so that at last the judgment of God would appear to be complete.

The world is struck by an earthquake more violent than any that have occurred since the creation of humankind. The earthquake shatters Babylon and the cities of the world collapse into rubble. The islands and the mountains of the world vanish. Yet the comment that concludes this scene of devastation does not focus on the annihilation of the wicked but on their refusal to repent. Rather than surrendering to God, they continue to curse God, as they have done in the face of previous plagues (16:21).

The Mystery of God Finished (16:17–21)

In 10:6–7, God promised that “the mystery of God” would be finished when the seventh angel poured out his vial; now we see this fulfilled. The events described in this section look forward to the fall of Babylon and the return of Christ to reign.

The repetitive character of the visions again shows that Revelation does not predict a neat sequence of events that will allow readers to discern where they are on God’s timeline. Instead, the book repeats a similar message of warning in multiple ways.

These visions are designed to set forth the promise of the ultimate triumph of righteousness over all the evil forces which oppose it. This was its message to the Christians of Asia Minor about A.D. 95. It assured them of the certain victory of Christianity over Rome. In a similar way today it assures us of the certain triumph of Christ’s cause over the cause of evil in every age