Apocalypse Now: The Seven Last Plagues of Revelation 16, Starting Around the Close of This Decade

Preamble: Trigger Conditions + Imminence

Until recently, the western nations had for centuries been discreetly ruled by their own respective domestic oligarchies obscured behind the façade of accountable, democratically elected governments, as has been the case here in the UK pretty much since the demise of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate.

However, in the past few decades there has been a quiet behind-the-scenes transformation amidst the elites to decouple themselves from the confines of parochial, own-country domination and a uniting of them behind a post-national, globalist (i.e. "matured" Marxist), one-world way of viewing things.

This has arisen from an immoral, atheistic, ideologically hyper-socialist¹ mindset – some would, reasonably, say spirit – that has captivated their imaginations and flooded their minds with notions of a Babel redivivus in service to their common interests, which they no longer view through the lens of a zero sum exclusion of each other, but for the collective greater good of the planet of which they view themselves as "stakeholders".

Hence they speak with one voice, all on-script as it were, on every major issue: healthcare (as we saw during the COVID crisis), geopolitics, financial policy, LGBTQ, climate change, etc.

Of course, they permit deviations (within strict bounds) in the utterances of their frontmen politicians, and so, for example, France, Britain, Australia and Canada were at liberty to formally recognise a Palestinian state at the UN in September 2025, whilst being openly decried for doing so by the US, but that's only for public perception management; at the level of the supranational establishment in the West, that decision was green-lit and for purposes perhaps related to the current global build-up to world war and the need to stay focussed on China (for the US) and Russia (for Europe), rather than being stretched by any projected fresh non-war-theatre entanglements in the Middle East.

Much the same is true concerning President Donald Trump's hollow theats about cutting the US loose from NATO, which is all just talk for the purpose of building consent in Europe for the coming war preparations (while he was openly demanding Denmark cede Greenland to the US, approval was passed in Congress for the sale of maritime patrol aircraft to Denmark, and as always with US arms deals, complete with a long-lasting and comprehensive support package).

Yet another example might be America's apparent pivot, at government level, away from wokecraft and back towards traditional, i.e., Christian, values; but scratch the surface and you will find that gay marriage is still approved, that Christian means anything that calls itself by that name (excluding faithful Reformation Protestantism (of course) but including Roman Catholicism²), and that it is all being done to corral the support of large numbers of ordinary conservatives in the US behind war preparations.³

It is these supranational godless western elites that are the true animus behind the beast system and bear the number 666 (for reasons explained in my commentary on Revelation 13), denoting their hidden exercise of ungodly power, i.e. governance, mediated through visible government, and it is they who have informally, without fanfare or public furore, picked a quarrel with the Lord’s public witness against sin and error, as foretold in Revelation 11:7; specifically, they have engineered laws designed to curtail the freedom of anyone to openly protest against any article of faith of the elites' vile value set (styled in Revelation 13 as the Image (or "idol", objects of worship, "sacred cows", pet projects, etc.) of the Beast, be that immigration, gay marriage, Islam, abortion, or whatever.

And it is the hidden-from-view ideology and functionality of the elites that is intended by the symbolism of the Scarlet Coloured Beast from the Bottomless Pit of Revelation 17, which is one and the same as the beast of Revelation 11 that makes war against the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 alluded to in the previous paragraph and "kills" them, that is, makes their witness effectively dead, and this it does through civic means, namely, wicked laws and corrupt policing.

The beast system's war against the Lord’s public witness thus consists of castigating the critiquing of error as pernicious while the legislation to strangulate such Christian endeavour is couched in predictably noble terms: the prevention of hate speech, shielding children from nefarious influences, defending the “rights” of homosexuals and transsexuals, societal stability, national security, and so on; the stated objectives appear, on the surface, very broadly scoped to most free speech advocates, but that is only to obscure the true and actual target: those who publicly protest from the moral absolute that is the Lord’s Word.

And as shown in my article, The Satanic Beasts of Revelation, the timing of this slaying of the Lord’s public witness here in the western world was focussed on the year 2025, a full 1,260 prophetic days or literal years from the appearance in its mature condition of the office of Antichrist, which occurred in 765 when the Donation of Pepin⁴ that had been made the previous decade finally came into substantive being, thereby enabling the Papacy to act as both ecclesiastical and temporal overlord on western European territory for the first time.

With the Lord’s public witness finally curtailed in most of the West (certainly, in most of its major cities), the rulers of darkness in the West will have plumbed a new depth of depravity and, like most of the ordinary population, their sin has pretty much reached, or is on the brink of reaching, its fulness, and warrants a very near future and superlative response from God, a response that shall be nothing less than the Seven Last Plagues.

Importantly, the Lord’s public witness is to lie dead for three and a half prophetic days (Revelation 11:9), that is, a literal 3.5 years which I take to be measured from around the mid-point of the second half of the year 2025, viz, from around the date on which Palestine was formally recognised as a state at the UN by the nations listed above.

It is during those 3.5 years - now underway - that, just as some of the old writers also thought, the Seven Last Plagues shall fall, but it is my view that these plagues shall all be condensed (as a mercy for the sake of the elect) into the final 1-2 years, meaning that they will not begin until 2028 at the earliest (if my hunch is correct).

And so we find ourselves today, in the middle years of the present decade, with the ominous glow of the Seven Last Plagues just lurking on the horizon, poised to see the fulfilment of Revelation 15 and 16.

Plague #1: The Noisome + Grievous Sore

"And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." (Revelation 16:2)

The first plague affects the earth, i.e., the "civilised" world that is the West, bringing a “noisome and grievous sore” or a “tumour” (translated from the old Luthertext rendering)⁵ upon all who have the Mark; some of the old writers interpreted this as a bitter pang of conscience but since many if not most of the ungodly affected have their consciences seared and "dwell carelessly in the isles" (Ezekiel 39:6), that is, they live without care for spiritual matters, it has a more prosaic meaning and seems to design a devastating public healthcare disaster affecting the basest of the ungodly in all western nations.

This plague is crafted to afflict only those who bear the Mark and who worship the Image - note that both Mark and Image are consistently referenced together in Revelation, as follows:

"And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads" (Revelation 13:15-16)

"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:" (Revelation 14:9-10)

"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." (Revelation 15:2)

"And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." (Revelation 16:2)

"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." (Revelation 19:20)

The Mark is demonstrably a self-imposed thing (as the reflexive verb used for its receipt in some translations reveals) and indicates those who have marked themselves as worshippers of the demanding and self-vocalising Image, it being an umbrella term for all the articles of faith the supranationally unified western establishment has sought through its "false prophet" (the narrators, the influencers, the apostate clergy, the educators, et al) to impose on us, namely, the formally endorsed value set at any given moment in any given territory.

In other words, all who go along to get along within what looks like a looming Chinese-style social credit system in the West will be ensnared by this first plague, and it appears from what is being said by those most directly involved in promoting a near-term digital ID and digital currency that not long after these things are introduced, mandatory vaccinations will become an integral part of maintaining a high social credit score and, thereby, a more unhindered access to commerce, services, travel, etc., whereas principled refuseniks will be "killed", that is, experience a marked loss of liberty and quality of life as a consequence of the new system.

"If these guys get a 100% digital system with a digital ID and programmable money, guess what? You don't get your vaccine this month, they're going to turn off your money [This is already the case with Brazil's Bolsa Família ("Family Allowance") system]. You don't transgender your kid, they're going to turn off your money. They're going to dictate all of your health and food policies to you." (Former investment banker Catherine Austin Fitts speaking on X)

Plague #2: The Sea Turns to Blood

"And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea." (Revelation 16:3)

The second plague affects the sea, i.e., the relatively uncivilised, "barbarian" world of the East, a sea that turns to the thick, dark, clotted blood of a dead man, so that every living soul within the sea shall "die".

Here again literal death is not intended, but rather, a civic death, or more precisely, a life-altering, catastrophic collapse in the standard of living of the masses in the nations of the East.

For clarity, those nations are, and for many decades have been, headed up by Russia with China as its lieutenant (in contradiction to those who imagine China is the head) and include all the communist nations, their proxies in the third world and their Islamic allies.

This judgment is to fall on the East, perhaps chiefly because of its role in fomenting and refining two great evils in the modern world: communism-cum-socialism and Islamism.

Both of those abominations have unremittingly and publicly hated and made much propaganda concerning the hedonism of the West, and in the process have been dehumanising westerners as selfish devils worthy of extirpation, and this has been done not out of good principles, but out of malicious covetousness.

And so for hating the liberties and prosperity that came as pleasant side effects radiating from the dissemination of Reformation principles in the West over several centuries, yet hypocritically coveting the same kind of living standards but within the constraints of their own evil worldviews, it appears Plague # 3their nations are set to simultaneously experience a total economic catastrophe that will make the shortages during the collapse of the Soviet Union look trivial by comparison.

How this might unfold is open to speculation, obviously, but the dynamics are already in play for it now that Russia and China have transitioned into "war economies" just when they are trying to get their BRICS monetary system airborne, a system designed to rival or even eventually displace America's petrodollar.

Plague #3: The Rivers + Fountains Turn to Blood

"And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments." (Revelation 16:4-7)

Plague #3 falls upon the rivers and fountains of waters, turning them to "blood", and is sent as a long-deferred retribution for the blood of the slain martyrs of God, most of whom fell in Europe at the hands of apostate Christianity (i.e. Arianism and more latterly, the Antichurch of Rome during the infamous Inquisition).

This plague is also attended by commentary in the heavenly scene commending God as righteous for its composition, suggesting that, to unbelievers in general and carnal professors of faith in particular, it will seem unfair and unjust.

So what is this plague specifically describing?

The rivers and fountains denote doctrinal matters, as they do in Joel 3:

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth out of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim." (Joel 3:18)

The term waters refers additionally to peoples in Revelation 17:15, and so I take the sense to be that the rivers and fountains of waters in Revelation 16:4 point to the various false religions of the disparate peoples that have flowed into the nations, especially, if not with exclusive reference to, the current Islamic invasion of the West.

In plainest terms, it is describing the most unimaginably violent and sanguinary civil unrest since the dawn of time, and is presented as a deferred judgment on the nations that persecuted and slew the martyrs and that have been slaughtering the innocent unborn on an industrial scale, all of whose blood cries out to the Lord for vengeance, according to the principle outlined in Revelation 6, as follows:

"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" (Revelation 6:9-19)

Deferred judgment was established even earlier in the Word; for example, the Canaanites had to drink up the full measure of their iniquities before they could be displaced by the Hebrews:

"But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." (Genesis 15:16)

"...and therefore as yet would not be turned out of the land, and the seed of Abram could not till then inherit it: wicked people have a measure of iniquity to fill up, which is known of God; some are longer, some are quicker in filling it up, during which time God waits patiently and bears with them; but, when it is completed, he stays no longer, but takes vengeance on them, (Matthew 23:32). The Amorites were only one of the nations of the Canaanites, but were a very strong and powerful one, and are put for them all, and are the rather mentioned, because Abram at this time dwelt among them; and it seems as if there were some good men among them, such as the confederates of Abram might be, and they were not arrived to that depth of wickedness they afterwards would and did, and which brought on their ruin, and so made way for the posterity of Abram to inherit their land... (John Gill's commentary on Genesis 15:16.)

I propose that such deferral of judgment, i.e., until the full measure of sin has been completed, is the case with the modern West also.

This plague might additionally serve (albeit this is a guess, not exposition!) to drive the Lord's children out of the metropolises and large towns in advance of much worse to follow under the ensuing plagues.

And of course it is plain to see that pre-positioning for this plague has long been underway in every western country, to the extent that we now have secular academics warning that civil war is inevitable and that government has lost control of the situation:

I do expect, however, all the major western nations to install more conservative-leaning governments before this plague arrives, not out of any altruistic volte-face amidst the elites with respect to the abominable policies of the Left, but for pragmatic reasons to do with attempting to improve morale and psychologically prepare the citizenry for the global war their recent defence papers allude to.

But it will be too late to prevent the internecine bloodshed that falls out from this plague.

Plague #4: The Sun Scorches the Earth

"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory." (Revelation 16:8-9)

Plague #4 falls upon the sun, which is the diurnal luminary, i.e., it pertains to "matters of the day" (the daily affairs of society) as opposed to "matters of the night" (the spiritual affairs of society).

This results in humanity being metaphorically scorched and burned with heat and fire, meaning:

1. A surge in tyrannical governmental oppression in both East and West in response to the unrest and uprisings ensuing from the previous plagues, i.e., the collapse in living standards in the East and the wholesale civil unrest in the West, or,
2. The presently much-feared increase in tyranny inherent in the proposed digital currencies, social credit systems, etc., or,
3. Both of the above.

This might also include oppressive allocation of resources, either in the name of crisis management or in the name of "saving the planet", stockpiling for war, etc.

But chiefly it results in populations being terrorised, profoundly vexed and very strictly controlled by governmental fiat, and might entail martial law or extreme policing, all in an attempt either at preventing total societal and systemic collapse, or to prepare for the major global war so many are now openly discussing, not just in the West, but in the East even more so.

This plague conduces men to "blaspheme the name of God", either in pursuit of relief through a "return to tradition" in the form of fake revivalism (see, for example, the part in this played by English anti-Islamist activist, Tommy Robinson), which entails no return to the Reformation and no Spirit-wrought change of heart and so "they repented not to give him the glory" (Revelation 16:9), or it refers to anger amongst the ungodly consciously directed at the Lord by the fake Christians and unconsciously so by the atheists, Muslims, et al, for bringing such evil providences upon them; or it could mean both, but regardless, note that a dynamic is now being developed for a final hurrah for the Antichurch of Rome and a gathering together of all its harlot offspring, much as the English Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, predicted would happen in An Exposition of the Revelation; if government oppression drives people to a false Christianity during this fourth plague, then it certainly means they will blaspheme God's Name, as all worship from apostate Christianity is (a) lip service and (b) offered via the Normative Principle of worship, and therefore odious to God and blaspheming His Name through the falsity of Arminian doctrines that deny His sovereignty, etc.

Plague #5: Darkness Upon the Seat + Kingdom of the Beast

"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, And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds." (Revelation 16:10-11)

The fifth plague falls upon the seat of the beast, that is, either the ranks of the ruling elites in the West or in the nation where most of the ruling elites abide (i.e. the US), and permeating its "kingdom", i.e., the visible corridors of political power in the West, bringing discord, loss of direction, confusion, fear, paranoia, bickering and injurious factionalism, and later systemic collapse and priming "the great giver Euphrates" for its drying up under the next plague.

This is a judgment upon the Davos clique, the globalists, the billionaire caste and the godless royals who have exercised power and influence whilst hiding behind the charade of accountable elected politicians since the Restoration.

These are they who have collectively declared themselves as post-nationalist rejecters of the nation-state concept, who have not merely embraced wokecraft and digital tyranny but positively concocted those things as control mechanisms, who call themselves "defenders of faiths" while hating the one true faith, who espouse Marxist ideas on many issues, and who supply all their sock puppet national governments with marching orders designed to serve a single, supranational suite of policies.

It is they whose pet projects and value sets constitute the abominable Image of the Beast that their servant, the False Prophet (the two-horned beast from the earth of Revelation 13) compels the ungodly to construct, so that the masquerade of governments legislating for organic, grassroots motions can be maintained.

And by that stage, with their countries straining under Plague #4's extreme emergency measures to contain public anger and disorder, they will start to realise their plans are going to miscarry; this will trigger a spiral of ruinous miscalculations and the fracturing of their alliances into what will eventually fall out, under the seventh and final plague, as a three-way geopolitical split (Revelation 16:19) in "the great city" (i.e. the West, the present-day successor to the ungodly Roman empire of old that crucified the Lord (Revelation 11:8)).

Plague #6: The Great Euphrates Dries Up + 3 Unclean Spirits Work

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." (Revelation 16:12-16)

Plague #6 falls upon the Great River Euphrates, "that the way for the kings of the east might be prepared".

Here I diverge from those who see this simply as a reference to the ascent of the godly ("the kings of the east" as understood by Reformed writers of old) to pre-eminence because, while it does indeed indirectly lead to that, it much more immediately leads to the horrifying geopolitical conditions ensuing from the release of the three unclean spirits from the mouths of the dragon, beast and false prophet, as follows:

• The Dragon = Satan himself, the direct agitator of the rulers of the nations of the East, where there is less need to steer the public with sophistry and where the reins of power are more plainly seen in its oligarch-as-president form of rulership.
• The Beast (the fourth beast of Daniel 7, now in its third and final "scarlet" (hyper-socialist) phase) = the unified, post-national, crypto-communist ruling establishment of the West, i.e., the elites-cum-oligarchy, including the worthless, Christ-hating, Islam-loving-and-facilitating royals of Europe.
• The False Prophet = the public opinion-forming caste used to artificially synthesise grassroots political demands in accordance with the secret designs of the Beast.

Therefore, this drying up of the river Euphrates is a metaphor for the removal of all geopolitical impediments to the "kings of the east", i.e., the rulers of Russia (Magog), China (Gomer) and Iran (Persia), along with Turkey (Togarmah) and others invading Israel in accordance with Ezekiel 38-39, to which end (a) Iran will not succumb to America's current (as of 2026) attempts at forcing regime-change and (b) Israel must soon lose its strong protection from America and begin to appear odious in the sight of its erstwhile supporters in the US (in fact, this process has already begun, indicating the Seven Last Plagues, amidst which the Gog-Magog event occurs, are near).

With the West effectively removed from the Middle East, at least as Israel's protector, the final East-versus-West showdown can unfold, with the nations of both camps in a state of turmoil and rage due to the previous plagues; and it facilitates the pre-war detour the nations of the East will make in the Levant in accordance with Ezekiel 38, a foolish expedition that will be timed for the conversion of the Jews and see the newly evangelical nation of Israel saved by an intervention that will leave the onlooking world in no doubt that the Lord has acted ("and they shall know that I am the LORD" - Ezekiel 39:6).

Bluntly stated, this plague's objective is to draw the nations into World War Three, the same scenario depicted in Joel 3's build-up to "the valley of decision", as Gill and others observe, and to come at a time when "their wickedness is great" (that is, extreme levels of sin).

The way it will likely (one speculates) play out is through the Russians brokering a peace deal in the Middle East with special guarantees given to Israel, leading Israel to imagine it is safe when in fact it is not; at the same time, the US would have absconded as Israel's greatest ally, either by choice or by distraction in, say, the Pacific (if China were to break out of the "first island chain"); Russia would then rally China, Iran and a Turkey that had pivoted from NATO to Russia's side (for more on this, see my notes on Ezekiel 38:6) behind a pre-WW3 campaign to lock down Israel's Leviathan gas field and to secure the eastern Mediterranean Sea with a view to denying access to the region by NATO forces and thereby taking a major step toward securing the central reaches of the Eurasian landmass; but the Lord will supernaturally intervene on Israel's behalf and thereby trigger panic in what remains of the Russian high command back in Moscow, who will either directly and despairingly initiate a first strike against the West, or will stand back as Russia's "dead hand" system does the same thing; either way, this would trigger a nuclear war between East and West pretty much out of the blue, and would catch world leaders unawares and, in some if not most cases, not even secured in their bunkers.

In short, the coming Russian-led invasion of Israel will probably lead to a successful decapitation strike on some of the major governments in the West, with an all-out nuclear exchange flattening and burning the cities of both East and West in return, as alluded to in Ezekiel 30:6.

Finally, note that in Revelation 16:15 Christ interjects on the eve of Armageddon with language redolent of that directed in warning to Sardis in Revelation 3:2-4:

"Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." (Revelation 16:15)

"Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy." (Revelation 3:2-4)

Note the Sardian themes common to both passages above:

• Christ coming like a thief (suddenly, stealthily, in an afflictive way).
• Watchfulness required.
• Keeping garments (i.e. of godly practice and Reformed doctrine) clean.

All of this confirms that the sixth plague comes at the very end of the present Sardis era and that somehow the rigours of the proceeding plagues, or the collateral ripple effects thereof felt by the church, will have drawn many professors of faith to, at long last, turn back and remember what Sardis "first received and heard" at its beginning, i.e., the Reformation.

Of course, Sardis has already been somewhat visited like a thief through the eschatological confusion that fell on it in the 1800s until now (which I hold to be a central theme of Revelation 10), and is yet to be visited further through the restrictions Christians will have to endure in the coming tyranny and through fiery trials that will weed out the false professors from the few names who keep their garments white; Sardis therefore was to fail to be watchful the first time it was warned (hence I know content such as that found on this website will largely be ignored for now), but Sardis will, through the terrible world events at hand, be primed for true, God-wrought repentance by the time Christ interjects in Revelation 16:15.

Simply stated, what the world is about to go through will be the worst tribulation since time began, described as "a time of trouble" in Daniel 12:1, but it will happily lead to not just a total reordering of the temporal affairs of humanity, but also prove transformative to the professing church once the real Philadelphian age begins.

Plague #7: The Great Earthquake, Great Hail, etc.

"And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." (Revelation 16:17-21)

The seventh and final plague falls upon the air, which is the medium of discourse, language and telecommunication, signalling an end to Satan dictating the narrative among the nations.

This plague brings to fruition the things primed in the previous plague, and I see them as presented not chronologically, but occurring in the following order:

• The Great Hail, which is a consequence of the nations being drawn into the Armageddon scenario mentioned under the previous plague; notably, Alexander Hislop (famed for his hated and routinely attacked treatise against Romanism, The Two Babylons) wrote in his earlier book, The Red Republic, that he understood the great hail as a war between Europe and Russia because he saw the element of ice in the plague as pointing to a hostile military force of boreal origin. The Jews also have a notion (according to John Gill⁶) that there will be a great hail "in the time of Messiah" (a time which they treat as contemporaneous with the Gog-Magog events of Ezekiel 38-39 - not that we derive doctrine from them while they are out of the fold). This event is to be the worst plague to ever beset humanity: "the plague whereof was exceeding great" and I take it to be one and the same as the fire the Lord will send on Magog and on them that dwell carelessly in the isles in Ezekiel 39:6 and, as outworking of the Armageddon war the unclean spirits shall draw the nations into (by way of judgment from God), will entail a mutually destructive nuclear barrage between East and West.
• The Great Earthquake, which is a political earthquake that shall reorder the geopolitical landscape, so that every metaphorical mountain is moved out of its place and every metaphorical island flees away, that is, a transformation of both society (and its institutions) and the world order to a degree unprecedented, that is, "such as was not since men were upon the earth" (Revelation 16:18); and this is one and the same as the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar’s image in Daniel 2; if one were to speculate as to details, one might surmise that the Great Hail will decapitate every major government on earth (it being a stated objective in nuclear warfare doctrine that the enemy's high command should be neutralised), leading to a power vacuum to be filled little by little, bit by bit, by the Lord's faithful servants ascending to control of government after government in nation after nation; the same event is described in Daniel 7:18,22.
• The Great City will be split into three parts, which bespeaks a fracturing of the civilised world (the West) into three mutually hostile factions, concluding a process begun under the fifth plague, when darkness consumes the ranks of the western elites; this split will perhaps consist of a French-led Latin bloc, a British-led Anglo bloc and a German-led Nordic bloc, all of which shall last only for a short time before they too are smashed to pieces by the effects of Daniel 2's stone cut out without hands striking the western alliances; this all applies to that great city wherein our Lord was crucified during its Roman empire phase, a city that today is effectively regarded, especially in the sight of the Russians, as "Sodom" for its immorality and "Egypt" for its materialism (see Revelation 11:8). So it seems there is to be a collapse of the West as a bloc, the fault lines for which might already be evident, and especially so when one considers the other great earthquake (if indeed, it not be one and the same as this earthquake), mentioned in Revelation 11, when the Two Witnesses (i.e. the Lord's public witness in the West against error and sin, which as of 2026 lies "dead" in the "street" (public view) of the Great City), are carried up to "heaven" (invited to advise or participate in government over the "tenth part of the great city" that shall fall). Most of the old Reformed writers appear to have understood that tenth part to refer to United Kingdom because they thought it had the highest concentration of believers in the world in their day; but for me, it has to be the pre-eminent western nation, and so I say it will be the US, and for that reason Satan may be trying to stall that happy outcome with an American pope and has made America his primary battlefield for the fake revivalism referenced above under plague #4.
• "The cities of the nations fell", which either points to the undeniable fact that the rest of the world will eventually succumb to the irresistible force of the stone cut out without hands as it grows into a mountain to fill the whole world in the Philadelphian age to come, a time when the Lord will open things for His own cause and in a way that no man can shut (Revelation 3:7), or it steps away from the symbolism briefly to foretell the destruction of all the major cities of the world in the Great Hail, which aligns well with the judgment sent on East and West in Ezekiel 39:6; another meaning might be that every major alliance or bloc (which the Great City (aka the West) itself is the prime example of), shall come undone in the chaos and terror of the Great Hail.
• Great Babylon, that is, the Antichurch and her harlot offspring, comes to remembrance before God for her crimes against the true church and the Lord's Name; this will follow in the aftermath of the terrible war and the early advances of the Philadelphian age, and consist of things detailed in Revelation 18, and so "that wicked" (the man of sin) shall be consumed by the brightness of Christ's coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8), which is what the Philadelphian age shall constitute, and his vile doctrines - including his Jesuits' weapon of Arminianism - will also be vanquished forever.

Closing Thoughts

Obviously the foregoing builds on English Puritan models, but shares the same core historicist principles that were synonymous with Protestantism during the Reformation.

If I have interpreted it correctly – and note that there must always be speculation within unfulfilled prophetic interpretations – then we have a few short years before the worst war in human history will arrive, years during which almost every worst case scenario conceivable will play out, making these indeed "perilous times".

But remember, judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17), and observing how the Reformation unravelled first, followed by western society becoming increasingly depraved, one feels a desperate urge to implore every professing believer today to remember what Sardis first received and heard, as Christ commands in Revelation 3:3, namely, the Reformation and its three core threads:

1. Its form of worship; the Regulative Principle was the first thing to wobble, and the same pattern is observable in ancient Israel when every man went and did that which was right in his own sight (Judges 21:25), first in worship and finally in the most deplorable atrocity against the young concubine that almost led to the extirpation of the tribe of Benjamin (Judges 19-21).
2. Its soteriology; the Reformers were Calvinistic and would not recognise as Protestant almsot the whole of that which today goes by that name because of the tolerance and then the mainstreaming of Jesuit Arminianism.
3. Its eschatology, which was historicist but now eclipsed by Jesuit futurism and, less commonly, idealism.

The illustrious visitation upon humanity that the Reformation certainly was surely requires a second look, now that so much eschatological confusion abounds, especially at a time when God is so plainly ordering multiple threads of trends in world affairs to bring on frankly terrible and terrifying events in the very near future.

We ought therefore to take very, very seriously the words of Jesus in Revelation 3's address to Sardis, the present church age!!!