Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

16:15-16
established here, for the multitude of frogs that infested
Egypt came from the river (Ex. 8:1-7). St. John has
combined these images in these verses: First, an
invasion from a river (v. 12); second, a plague of frogs
(in the Old Covenant dietary laws, frogs are unclean:
Lev. 11:9-12, 41-47). But these “frogs” are really spirits
of demons, performing signs in order to deceive
mankind. Again there is a multiple emphasis on the
Dragon (imitated by his cohorts) throwing things from
his mouth (cf. 12:15-16; 13:5-6; contrast 1:16; 11:5;
19:15, 21); and the triple repetition of mouth here
serves also as another point of contact with the Sixth
Trumpet (9:17-19). These unclean spirits from the
devil, the Roman government, and the leaders of Israel
go out to the kings of the whole world (cf. Ps. 2) to
gather them together for the War of that great Day of
God. By their false prophecy and miraculous works they
incite the armies of the world to join together in war
against God. What they do not realize is that the battle
is the Lord’s, and that the armies are being brought to
fulfill God’s purposes, not their own. It is He who
prepares the way for them, even drying up the
Euphrates for their passage.
Micaiah the prophet gave a much similar message to
the evil king Ahab of Israel, explaining why he would
be killed in battle against the Aramaeans:
I saw the LORD sitting on His Throne, and all the host of
heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. And
the LORD said, “Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at
Ramoth-gilead?” And one said this while another said that.
Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD and
said, “I will entice him.” And the LORD said to him, “How?”
And he said, “I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the
mouth of all his prophets.” Then He said, “You are to entice
him and also prevail. Go and do so.” (1 Kings 22:19-22)
This is echoed in St. Paul’s prophecy to the Thessalonians:
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he
who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.
And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord
will slay with the Breath of His mouth and bring to an end by
the appearance of His Coming; that is, the one whose coming
is in accordance with the activity of Satan, with all power and
signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of
wickedness among those who perish, because they did not
receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
And for this reason God will send upon them a work of
error so that they might believe the lie, in order that they all
may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but took
pleasure in wickedness. (2 Thess. 2:7-12)
Ultimately, the “work of error” performed by these
lying spirits is sent by God in order to bring about the
destruction of His enemies in the War of that great
Day of God, a Biblical term for a Day of Judgment, of
calamity for the wicked (cf. Isa. 13:6, 9; Joel 2:1-2, 11,
31; Amos 5:18-20; Zeph. 1:14-18). Specifically, this is
to be the Day of Israel’s condemnation and execution;
the Day, as Jesus foretold in His parable, when the King
would send His armies to destroy the murderers and set
their City on fire (Matt. 22:7). St. John underscores
this point again by referring to the Lord as God the
Almighty, the Greek translation of the Hebrew
expression God of Hosts, the Lord of the armies of
heaven and earth (cf. 1:8). The armies coming to bring
about Israel’s destruction – regardless of their
motivation – are God’s armies, sent by Him (even
through lying spirits, if necessary) to bring about His
purposes, for His glory. The evil frog-demons perform
their false wonders and works of error because God’s
angel poured out his Chalice of wrath.
15 The narrative is suddenly interrupted: Behold, I am
coming like a thief! This is the central theme of the
Book of Revelation, summarizing Christ’s warnings to
the churches in the Seven Letters (cf. 2:5, 16, 25; 3:3,
11). The coming of the Roman armies will be, in
reality, Christ’s Coming in terrible wrath against His
enemies, those who have betrayed Him and slain His
witnesses. The specific wording and imagery seem to be
based on the Letter to the church in Sardis: “I will come
like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will
come upon you” (3 :3; cf. Matt. 24:42-44; Luke 12:35-
40; 1 Thess. 5:1-11). That Letter also says: “Wake up,
and strengthen the things that remain, which were
about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed
in the sight of My God. . . . But you have a few people
in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will
walk with Me in white; for they are worthy. He who
overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments. . . ”
(3:2, 4-5). Similarly, the text of the Sixth Chalice
continues, in Revelation’s third beatitude: Blessed is
the one who stays awake and keeps his garments, lest
he walk about naked and men see his shame (cf. 3:18,
in the Letter to Laodicea: “I advise you to buy from Me
... white garments, that you may clothe yourself and that
the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed”). John
Sweet comments: “Here the tense of go naked and
be seen is present subjunctive = ‘go about naked
habitually.’ The danger is of being caught not
momentarily but habitually off guard – not, to put it
crudely, with trousers down, but without trousers at
all.” 24
Philip Carrington explains the origin of St. John’s
allusion: “There was an officer on duty at the Temple
whose business it was to walk round and see that those
who were on watch kept awake; if he found them asleep
he beat them; if he found them a second time, he burnt
their clothes. This is the only possible explanation of
this passage. It means, Now is the time for those who
are guarding the Temple to keep awake. The whole
symbolism of the Sixth Bowl, therefore, of which this is
a part, has to do with an attack on the Temple.” 25
Judgment and destruction are approaching rapidly;
there is no time left to waste. The churches must be
awake and on the alert.
16 The narrative is resumed: The demons gather the
24. Sweet, p. 249.
25. Carrington, pp. 265 f.; cf. Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services As They Were at the Time of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1980), pp. 142, 148.
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