30
Съ женою обручишься, а другой будетъ спать съ нею; домъ построишь, но не будешь жить въ немъ; виноградникъ насадишь, и не будешь имъ пользоваться.
Второзаконие 28:30
Apocalypse Revealed # 456
456. But the rest of mankind, who were not killed in these plagues. (9:20) This symbolizes people in the Protestant Reformed Church who were not as spiritually dead as the former were because of their illusory reasonings and love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts, and yet who made faith alone the chief tenet of their religion.
The rest of mankind mean people who are not like those described, but who still make faith alone the chief tenet of their religion. Their not being killed symbolizes people not so spiritually dead. The plagues in which the former were killed mean a love of self, a conceit in their own intelligence, and the attendant lusts for evil and falsity, because these three are symbolized by fire, smoke and brimstone, as discussed above in nos. 452, 453. We will see below that plagues have this symbolism. But first we must say something about the people:
[2] I have been given to see these people, too, and to speak with them. They live in the northern zone over to the west. Some of them have huts there with roofs, others huts without roofs. Their beds are made of rushes, their clothes of goats' hair. Seen in the light that flows in from heaven, their faces have a leaden color and also lack vitality. The reason is that they know nothing more from their religion than that there is a God, that there are three persons, that Christ suffered the cross for them, and that they are saved by means of faith alone, and in addition by worship in churches and prayers at set times. To anything else pertaining to religion and its tenets they pay no attention. For the worldly and personal concerns that occupy and fill their minds shut their ears to them.
Many of them were church elders, and I asked them what their thinking was when they read about works, love and charity, fruits, precepts for life, repentance - in word, about things that must be done. They replied that they had indeed read these things and so had seen them, but still did not see them, because they kept their mind focused on faith alone. Consequently they said that these all constitute faith, and that they did not think of them as being the effects of faith.
The ignorance and stupidity of people once they have embraced faith alone and made it the whole of their religion is such as to be scarcely believable, even though I have been given to witness it by a good deal of experience.
[3] That plagues symbolize spiritual plagues, which cause a person to die in spirit or as regards his soul, is apparent from the following passages:
Your rupture is hopeless, your plague severe... ...I will restore health to you and heal you of your plagues... (Jeremiah 30:12, 14, 17)
Everyone who goes by Babylon shall... hiss at all her plagues. (Jeremiah 50:13)
...plagues will come (to Babylon) in one day - death and mourning... (Revelation 18:8)
I saw... seven angels having the seven last plagues, by which the wrath of God is to be consummated. (Revelation 15:1, 6)
Woe to a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity... From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it. A wound and a scar and a fresh plague - these have not been expressed, bound up, or soothed with ointment. (Isaiah 1:4, 6)
In the day that Jehovah will bind up the fracture of His people and heal the wound of its plague. (Isaiah 30:26)
So, too, elsewhere, as in Deuteronomy 28:59, Jeremiah 49:17, Zechariah 14:12, 15, Luke 7:21, Revelation 11:6; 16:21.
Revelation 16
1
I heard a loud voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God on the earth!"
2
The first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth, and it became a harmful and evil sore on the people who had the mark of the beast, and who worshiped his image.
3
The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man. Every living thing in the sea died.
4
The third poured out his bowl into the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.
5
I heard the angel of the waters saying, "You are righteous, who are and who were, you Holy One, because you have judged these things.
6
For they poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this."
7
I heard the altar saying, "Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments."
8
The fourth poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was given to him to scorch men with fire.
9
People were scorched with great heat, and people blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They didn't repent and give him glory.
10
The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain,
11
and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They didn't repent of their works.
12
The sixth poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates. Its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings that come from the sunrise.
13
I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, something like frogs;
14
for they are spirits of demons, performing signs; which go forth to the kings of the whole inhabited earth, to gather them together for the war of that great day of God, the Almighty.
15
"Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he doesn't walk naked, and they see his shame."
16
He gathered them together into the place which is called in Hebrew, Megiddo.
17
The seventh poured out his bowl into the air. A loud voice came forth out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, "It is done!"
18
There were lightnings, sounds, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men on the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty.
19
The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20
Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
21
Great hailstones, about the weight of a talent, came down out of the sky on people. People blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for this plague is exceedingly severe.
