What Do the Last Seven Plagues Teach Us?

I was thinking about the 7 last plagues this morning.  Have you ever done that?  Yes, it is a bit weird.  These plagues always seem to be described as punishment from God: 

Rev 16:1 – Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God. 

Story of Redemption, p.1 – God could not punish sinners with the seven last plagues while Jesus ministered in the sanctuary. But when Jesus finished His work in heaven and the judgment was ended, nothing could protect the guilty sinner from God's anger against sin. 

Yet, the unsaved throughout history who died before the close of probation do not experience these plagues, and thus, do not receive this punishment.  The plagues must be something more than judgment.  Consider also the saved during the plagues.  We are told that: 

Maranatha 112 – When the character of the Saviour shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim His own. 

With exceedingly rare exception (maybe Enoch and Elijah), perhaps no one in the last 6,000 years has perfectly reproduced the character of Christ.  So how do the 144,000 (or their literal number) manage to do that?  I believe this is telling us that the time after the close of probation is like no other time since the creation of the world.  Both the lost and the saved experience conditions not seen in history.  The 7 last plagues are not so much a punishment as they are a demonstration.  Let me try to explain. 

First, those that are lost are not like the wicked from past times.  Sure, there have been, throughout history, Satan-controlled people who were wicked beyond measure.  But these wicked living past the close of probation are different; they are not like your unsaved friends, relatives, and neighbors.  These wicked have 1) heard the 3 angels’ messages in startling clarity, 2) seen the unmistakable active intervention of God in the world as demonstrated in the plagues, 3) planned, with hatred and uncontrolled anger, to kill God’s people.  These wicked were once your unsaved friends, relatives, and neighbors, but they have so thoroughly resisted the Holy Spirit in the face of the certainty of God’s will that they have willfully transformed into something unrecognizable.  They actually deserve a special punishment, but that is not the sole purpose of the plagues.  Apparently, this is a time unlike any other in history – a time of demonstration. 

Consider, now, the saved.  Why does a member of the last generation have to fully reflect the character of Jesus when no one before has had to do that to be saved?  Remember the thief on the cross*.  Again, we begin to conclude that there is something very different about this period of Earth’s history.  There are three unique events in the lives of the last-days Christians.  They experience 1) the test of the Mark of the Beast, 2) the sealing or refreshing from the Holy Spirit in the Latter Rain, and 3) the Time of Jacob’s Trouble.  “It is needful for them to be placed in the furnace of fire; their earthliness must be consumed, that the image of Christ may be perfectly reflected” (GC 621).  The experiences they go through, apparently, purge them, making the sealing permanent. 

These considerations lead me to believe that the time of the 7 last plagues is not so much a judgment as a demonstration of contrast.  The watchers of the Universe see the results of God’s government and Satan’s government.  Everyone has chosen a side.  The line of demarcation is bright.  One group confronted with the undeniable evidence of God’s workings “cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues.  They did not repent and give him glory” (Rev 16:9).  They were once decent citizens (for the most part), but Satan’s ways made them something horrible.  The other group said, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!” (Rev 7:12). 

During our current time of probation, we are privileged to connect ourselves with heavenly power so that we will not be deceived in the end times.  We must be among those receiving the refreshing of the Holy Spirit, which will fit us for those heavenly mansions that Jesus is preparing for us.  But, the time to make that connection is now.  We must not just wait until the Latter Rain, for by then, it will not fall on us.  We must be fitted for it now.  You know what to do to make that happen – surrender all. 

1 SM 191 – The latter rain will come, and the blessing of God will fill every soul that is purified from every defilement. It is our work today to yield our souls to Christ, that we may be fitted for the time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord—fitted for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 

*  End Note:  We can understand the thief on the cross in the light of this statement from the Spirit of Prophecy: 

MYP 35 – The righteousness by which we are justified is imputed; the righteousness by which we are sanctified is imparted. The first is our title to heaven, the second is our fitness for heaven. 

The thief received justification, his title to heaven, on the cross next to Jesus.  There was no time for sanctification, but he was, nonetheless, justified.  We, today, should be seeking sanctification, or fitness for heaven.  If we have no interest in gaining the culture of heaven now, of what worth is our assumed imputed justification?