Darkness And Gnawing Pain

The kingdom of this wild beast has been in spiritual darkness ever since it beginning. (Compare Matthew 8:12; Ephesians 6:11, 12) The fifth bowl brings intensified public announcement of this darkness. It even dramatizes it, in that this bowl of God's anger is poured out upon the very throne of the symbolic wild beast. "And its kingdom became darkened, and they began to gnaw their tongues for their pain, but they blasphemed the God of heavens for their pains and for their ulcers, and they did not repent of their works." - Revelation 16:10b, 11.

The fifth trumpet blast is not exactly the same as the fifth bowl of God's anger, since the trumpet blast heralded a plague of locusts. But notice that at the release of that plague of locusts, there was a darkening of the sun and the air. (Revelation 9:2, 5) And at Exodus 10:14, 15, we read concerning the locusts with which Jehovah plagued Egypt. "They were very burdensome. Before them there had never turned up in this way locusts like them, and there will never turn up any in this way after them. And they went covering the visible surface of the entire land, and the land grew dark." Yes, darkness! Today, the world's spiritual darkness has become all too evident as a result of the sounding of the fifth trumpet and the pouring out of the bowl of God's anger. The stinging message proclaimed by the modern-day locust swarm brings torment and pain to those wicked ones who "have loved the darkness rather than the light." - John 3:19.

As world ruler, Satan has caused much unhappiness and suffering. Famine, wars, violence, crime, drug abuse, immorality, sexually transmitted diseases, dishonesty, religious hypocrisy -these and more are are the hallmarks of Satan's system of things. (Compare Galatians 5:19-21) Even so, the public exposure of Satan as the god of this system of things caused pain and embarassment to those who live by his standards. "They began to gnaw their tongues for their pain," especially in Christendom. Many resent that the truth exposes their lifestyle. Some find it threatening, and they persecute those who publish it. They reject God's Kingdom and revile Jehovah's holy name. Their religiously diseased, ulcerous condition is laid bare, so that they blaspheme the God of heaven. No, they do "not repent of their works." So we cannot expect a mass conversion before the end of this system of things. -Isaiah 32:6

Next time: The River Euphrates Dried Up.