Revelation 16:17 - Meaning and Application

Here we have the seventh and last angel pouring out his bowl. This was the final blow in the fall of Babylon, the finishing stroke. As before, we should notice where this plague fell, what it produced, and how the followers of Antichrist responded to it.

First, it fell on the air, on the prince of the power of the air, meaning the devil. His power was restrained, and his schemes were brought to nothing. He was bound in God’s chain. God’s sword was against his eyes and his arm. He, like the rulers of the earth, is under the almighty power of God.

The devil had used every means he could to keep the Antichristian cause alive and to stop Babylon from falling. He worked on people’s minds, blinding their judgment, twisting their thoughts, hardening their hearts, and stirring up hatred against the gospel as much as he could. But now a bowl is poured out on his kingdom, and he can no longer hold up his collapsing cause.

What this produced was, first, a thankful voice from heaven, declaring that the work was now finished. The church in heaven saw it and rejoiced, and the church on earth saw it and became victorious. It is finished.

Second, it brought a great shaking on earth, an earthquake unlike any before it. It shook the very center, and thunder and lightning came with it, as they often do in such scenes.

Third, Babylon fell. It was split into three parts, called the cities of the nations (Rev 16:19). It had ruled over the nations and had taken in the idolatry of the nations. Its religion mixed something of Judaism, something of paganism, and something of Christianity, so it was like three cities joined into one. God now remembered this great and wicked city. For a time, it seemed as if he had overlooked her idolatry and cruelty, but now he gives her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. This fall went beyond the seat of Antichrist. It spread from the center to the edges, and every island and every mountain, though they seemed safest by nature and location, was swept away in the flood of this ruin.

The Antichristian party was deeply affected by this. The blow came like a terrible storm, as if the stones of the city were thrown into the air and then crashed down on their heads like hailstones weighing a talent each. Yet they did not repent. Instead, they blasphemed the God who was punishing them. This was a dreadful plague of the heart, a spiritual judgment worse than all the others.

We should learn three things from this. The greatest disasters that can come on people will not lead them to repentance unless God’s grace works with them. Those who are not made better by God’s judgments are always made worse by them. And when people are hardened in sin and set against God by his righteous judgments, that is sure proof of final destruction.