Bible Handbook

Seven Last Plagues

• Revelation 16:1. The seven angels pour out the vials of God’s wrath upon the earth. The Great Controversy, 628, 629. BHB 26.2

• Revelation 16:2. The first plague is a “noisome and grievous sore.” BHB 26.3

• Revelation 16:3. The second plague causes the sea to become “as the blood of a dead man.” BHB 26.4

• Revelation 16:4. The third plague causes the rivers and fountains of water to become blood. BHB 26.5

• Revelation 16:5, 6. After the plagues have affected all the water upon the earth, the angel of the waters declares it to be a righteous judgment. BHB 26.6

• Revelation 16:7. An angel from heaven responds. BHB 26.7

• Revelation 16:8. The fourth plague will cause the sun to “scorch men with fire.” BHB 26.8

• Revelation 16:9. These plagues will cause men to blaspheme God; naturally they accuse God’s people, who are sheltered from the plagues as being responsible for the plagues. BHB 26.9

• Revelation 16:10. The fifth plague is darkness that fills all the kingdom of the beast. Christ’s Object Lessons, 420. BHB 26.10

• Revelation 16:11. The wicked are still suffering because of the sores that come under the first plague, and they blaspheme God and continue to blame God’s people for all the plagues that have fallen upon them. If they blaspheme God, naturally they will hate His representatives. BHB 26.11

• Revelation 13:15. Special life and power begins to show itself in the beast and its image. BHB 27.1

• Revelation 16:12, 16. The sixth plague,-drying up of the river Euphrates. BHB 27.2

• Isaiah 8:7. A river, flowing through a country, is taken as a type of the country; hence, the drying up of the Euphrates would indicate the drying up of the Turkish empire under the sixth plague. BHB 27.3

• Revelation 16:13. Aside from the people of God, there remain three classes; “the dragon,” the power which sought to destroy the child Jesus, or paganism (Revelation 12:1-5); “the beast,” which persecuted the church during the 1260 years (the period known in history as the Dark Ages); and “the false prophet,” or apostate Protestantism. BHB 27.4

• Revelation 16:13, 14. Spiritualism takes control of all three of these classes and unites them in a war against God and His people. Testimonies for the Church 5:451. BHB 27.5

• Revelation 16:15; Isaiah 33:14. Those who are holy and righteous are protected and blessed; while those who are classed with the people of God, but are not really of them at this time, are fully revealed. BHB 27.6

• Revelation 13:15. The decree goes forth that all who do not worship the beast will be slain. Esther 3:13-15; The Great Controversy, 635; Early Writings, 282. BHB 27.7