Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #5 of Revelation, chapter 16, and we are going to be reading Revelation 16:4-7:

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.

I will stop reading there. We have been going along in Revelation, chapter 16. Once again, God is describing His judgment on the world. He is pouring out the vials of the seven last plagues through His messengers. The “angels” or messengers (the elect) of God are the ones doing the “leg work.” God is commanding it and they are obeying His command. We have seen that this points to God’s command to His people to share the information from the Bible that it is Judgment Day.

Really, it is as simple as that. When we have opportunity to do so, we share the things we have learned, the truths we have learned from the Bible. This is what the Bible is teaching. God has shut the door to heaven and it is Judgment Day.

We saw that as part of this Day of Judgment, it said in Revelation 16:3:

And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

And then it was said in Revelation 16:5:

…Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.

We talked a little bit in our last study about the righteous judgment of God. Actually, verse 7 also speaks of God’s judgment being righteous, as it says in Revelation 16:7:

And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.

The judgments of God are the Word of God that brings the condemnation to mankind and God’s judgments upon them for their sins is a true and righteous judgment. It is a proper and correct judgment – there is nothing unjust about it. There is nothing for which man can accuse God and say it is unfair because God has ended His salvation program while people are still living on the earth. There are all sorts of accusations against the doctrines. Of course, they do not accuse God, for the most part, but they would accuse God’s messengers, the true believers, that are seeing these things in the Bible and are sharing these things. God’s messengers receive the accusations. The people making the accusations do not charge God directly, but they defame, revile and put down His messengers as though they are not really His messengers.

Yet, these messengers are using the Biblical methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture, making sure their conclusions harmonize with the entire Bible. They are constantly referring to the Bible, with no outside authority – nothing added and nothing subtracted – and not based on church creeds and confessions or theological writings. It is the Bible alone that is being declared and, yet, these charges are made against the people of God that carry the message of the Bible.

People like to try to separate God’s messengers from God, but God makes this point clear in His Word. When Samuel felt rejected by the people (and he was), God said to Samuel, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” When God sends forth His messengers carrying a message from the Word of God, it is a message from God. And when that message is rejected, ignored or despised, it is also what is being done to God and that is how God views it. It is just like how an ambassador represents the one that sent the ambassador; when the ambassador is reviled and disdained, the one who sent him is the one that receives the insult because they dared to disdain the ambassador.

That is how it is today. People can try to separate the message of the Bible and the messengers that bring that message from God. They often do this because they are trying not to give the appearance of hurling the insults at God directly. It is these (so-called) “heretics” that are the target of their insults, but that is not how God receives it; when His people are put down in that way, God sees it as an affront to Him. And it is an affront to God because God has sent the seven messengers: “Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.”

We cannot get away from the fact that this message of judgment is coming directly from God and His judgments are true and righteous; they are not unfair. It is a perfectly measured and perfectly balanced punishment on the scales of justice that God has determined upon this world and there is nothing that is unjust in any way.

Let us look at verse 6 before we continue on. It says in Revelation 16:6:

For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

We have to be careful when we read this verse because the way it seems to read is this way: “for they” (the enemies of God) have shed the blood of saints and prophets and that would be a correct understanding. The kingdom of Satan has shed the blood of saints and prophets. Then it goes on to say that God (who is the “thou” referred to) “hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.” Here is where we have to be careful. Who is being referred to by the word “them”? Is it referring to the ones that have shed the blood, the enemies of God? Or, is it referring to the “saints and prophets” who had their blood shed? Which group is in view? To whom did God gave “blood to drink, for they are worthy? Is it the people of God or those that are not the people of God? We saw in verse 4 that it was God who turned the rivers and the fountains of waters to blood, so we tend to think that if their water supply is turned to blood, then God must be giving them blood to drink because they are “worthy,” in the sense that since they shed blood, they must now drink blood – we see that as justice. But this is not the case and it is not what is being said here. Remember when God turned the waters of Egypt to blood, it said in Exodus 7:17-18:

Thus saith JEHOVAH, In this thou shalt know that I am JEHOVAH: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river.

A little further down, it says in Exodus 7:20:

… and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

So, when the water was turned to blood the Egyptians did not drink it – they could not drink it and they were loath to drink it. It was not that they began drinking the water that was turned to blood. We do not find anywhere (that I am aware of) where the Egyptians or anyone else does drink water that has been turned to blood, but in our verse in Revelation 16:6, it says, “and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.” Well, perhaps it means that since God turned the waters to blood, therefore, if they were to drink it (not that they would), then their waters were turned to blood. No – that cannot be; it is the word “worthy” that stands out and calls for our attention. Let us go to John 6:53-56:

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

Christ is speaking of true believers. They will “drink his blood” and “eat his flesh.” Notice the reaction of the Jews in John 6:60:

Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

They did not like this idea of drinking his blood and eating his flesh. After all, God had commanded that man was not to drink the blood of animals, so what was Jesus saying when He said that they must drink His blood? Yet, Christ was speaking spiritually, since the “life is in the blood” and He had given His life for those that God had chosen from the foundation of the world and He had come to demonstrate that by dying a second time. So, He is saying that if you are saved, you must drink His blood and eat His flesh, but the Jews could not even begin to think along those lines.

Also, concerning the Lord’s Table, it says in 1Corinthians 11:25-29:

After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

This is interesting because in the Lord’s Supper the grape juice is said to be the “blood” of Christ and the bread is said to be the “body” of Christ, just as Jesus said in John 6 that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. So the Lord’s Supper is given and the “cup” is pointing to Christ giving up His life, so it is the “cup” that represents the blood of Christ that was shed for you, if you are one of those for whom He died. Yet, if you “drink unworthily,” or if you are not one that He died for, you are eating and drinking damnation to yourself, not discerning the Lord’s body. It is added sin to all the other sins that you have committed in your life.

Let us think about what God is saying in Revelation 16:6:

For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets…

And now God has given them blood to drink; the saints and prophets are given the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, as He gave His life for them. Then it goes on to say, in Revelation 16:6:

… for they are worthy.

The saints and prophets who were given the “blood” of Christ are worthy; Christ died for them and, therefore, they are worthy to drink the cup of the “blood” and eat the bread of the “body” of Christ because they were chosen and predestinated to salvation before the foundation of the world.

Now let us look at just one other verse, in Revelation 3:4:

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.

This is the same language we have in Revelation 16:6:

… and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

It identifies with a saved person, clothed in “white linen,” which points to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are worthy. When we look up that word, the end of verse 6 just does not lead us to the ungodly; the drinking of blood AND being worthy does not direct us to the unsaved; it directs us to the saved.

God has worded it awkwardly and it could easily be misunderstood to mean that it is speaking of the ungodly, but we have to keep in mind that this is how God has written the Bible – He does not make it easy to understand, but difficult, in order that we search these things out, like this statement in Revelation 16, verse 6.