God's Anger Brought to a Finish - Jehovah's Wrath Against "the Earth"

 The first angel goes into action!  "And the first one went off and poured out his bowl into the earth.  And a hurtful and malignant ulcer came to be upon the men that the mark of the wild beast and that were worshiping its image.  (Revelation 16:2)  As in the case of the first trumpet blast,  "the earth"  here symbolizeds the stable-looking political system that Satan began to build here on earth back in Nimrod's time, over 4,000 years again. - REVELATION  8:7.

In these last days, many governments have demanded what amounts to worship from their subjects, insisting that State must be exalted above God or any other loyalty.  (2 Timothy 3:1; compare Luke 20:25; John 19:15.)  Since 1914 has become  common for nations to conscript their youth in order  for them to fight, or be ready to fight, the kind of total warfare that has so bloodied the pages of modern history.  During the Lord's day, the nations have also produced, as  a substitute for God's Kingdom, the image of the beast- the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations.  What blasphemy to proclaim, as recent popes have done, that this man-made body is the nations' sole hope for peace!  It  staunchly opposes God's Kingdom.  Those who worship it become spirituall unclean, ulcerated, just as the Egyptians  who opposed Jehovah in Moses's day were plagued by literal sores and ulcers. -EXODUS 9:10, 11.

The contents of this bowl strongly emphasize the choice that lies before humans.  They must suffer either the world's disappproval or Jehovah's indingnation.  Mankind has been put under compulsion to accept the mark of the world beast, with the intent that "nobody might be able  to buy or sell except a person having the mark, the name of the beast or the number of its name." (Revelation 13:16, 17)  But there is a price to pay for this!  Jehovah  regards those who accept the mark as being stricken with "a hurtful and malgnant ulcer."  Since 1922 they have  been marked in public as have rejected the living God .  Their political schemes  have no successs, and thy suffer anguish.  Spiritually, they are unclean.  Unless they repent,this "hurtful illness will be terminal, for it is now Jehovah's day of judgment.  There is no neutral ground between being a part of the world's system of things and serving Jehovah on the side of his Christ.  -  LUKE 11:23; compare JAMES 4:4. 

Next time: God's Anger Brought to a Finish - The Sea Becomes Blood

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