The fifth bowl

God now shows that the Antichrist and his kingdom has all been a facade. This kingdom is still built upon God’s earth, and they need God's earth to exist. Man has not gained independence from Him. He still needs the rain; he still needs the sunshine; he still needs the fish in the water. And what if the earth turns against this kingdom? The cursed earth can still produce diseases that the Antichrist’s scientists cannot handle that can cripple his kingdom at a moment's notice. The very sun that is in the heavens is not under man's control. God can send out heat waves that destroy. God is saying, I am still on the throne, and I am still in the heavens, and I still will do what I please! And you owe your existence to me now, as ever you did! I will judge you for your rebellion against me. You have not gotten rid of me! You have not cast me out of my earth. I am God. I will show myself. He breaks through.

And it is that reality made plain in the first four vials that leads to the fifth vial:

And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain. Revelation 16:10, KJV

The point of this fifth vial is to show the effect of the first four vials upon the anti-Christian kingdom: Darkness covers the kingdom. Not a literal darkness; after all, the sun in the fourth vial is sending out scorching heat. But a darkness of a reality that is coming over this kingdom like a dark cloud. People are beginning to see it for the farce that it has been. They are seeing their utopia break apart. This kingdom had claimed to be the light of the world, and now men see that it is not what it had claimed to be. Darkness comes over it, and the men of this kingdom are gnawing their tongues for pain under the first four vials, when the Antichrist had promised them that they would never gnaw their tongues for pain again if they joined with him!

The Antichrist rises to power, you understand, on the promise of the unity of man and of the conquering of the consequences of sin. Promises that there will be food for all and health for all and wealth for all. That man will be able to pursue his lusts with freedom and not pay for it in the end. He promises abundance. He promises safety. He promises peace. He promises protection. He promises control of the elements of the world. And the kings of the earth – including those kings from the East – have given their allegiance to him for this. They join him for these benefits. And for a while, of course, the Antichrist and his kingdom delivers on these promises. God allows men to think for a time that they can produce their sin-filled, depraved utopia in isolation from Him and independence from Him. He allows man to fill the cup of iniquity in this regard.

But then He breaks into this kingdom with the judgments from the very earth upon which this kingdom is built! And the glory of this anti-Christian kingdom begins to wane, and the authority of the Antichrist is now questioned, and his power begins to fail. Whereas once all men had cried out, Who is able to make war with the beast? (Revelation 13:4) He is invincible! He is unconquerable!, now God shows that He can make war with the beast, and that the beast is not what he claimed to be. That man is not god in the earth. There is pain at which they gnaw now in their tongues. There is starvation. There is heat that cannot be controlled. Do you see that God is doing the same thing here that He did when men did this the first time at the Tower of Babel? There men came together as one to reach up into heaven and to overthrow God, to find independence from Him and from His law. And God reached down and destroyed their tower and destroyed their unity and scattered their kingdom. So too here He is reaching down and He is destroying the anti-Christian kingdom in these vials.¹

Cory Griess