Revelation 16:2

And the first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth; and it became a noisome and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast, and that worshipped his image.

And the first went and poured out ... The word for "sore" is "the same as that used to describe the boils and sores in the plagues of Egypt (Exodus 9:8-11)."[13] Moffatt translated it as a "noisome and painful ulcer."[14] "Noisome," of course, means "stinking." Before taking up the meaning of this, note that this plague fell only upon those identified with the beast.

Upon the men that had the mark of the beast ... "These evils (the bow]s) do not affect other men (the Christians)."[15] A mandatory deduction here is that no literal destruction of the land is meant.

But what is meant? The earth itself, its populations out of which the land-beast arose, will become one vast propaganda factory advancing the teachings of the devil, with the result that all kinds of "stinking ulcers" shall spring up all over the world. Within a few blocks of where this is written, there are a dozen of them, as proclaimed by their gaudy neon signs: "Totally Nude Girls," "Adult Theater XXX Movies," "Bottoms Up Club," "Sylvia Sin's Lounge," etc. If anyone does not believe such places are "stinking ulcers," let him ask the police of any great city. Tragically, there is no way to stop the pornographic, liquor, prostitution, and perversion palaces which today fill half the world. An angel of the wrath of God has poured out his bowl upon the earth, not upon a third of it, but upon all of it.

Scholars who think they can get rid of this prophecy by limiting it to ancient pagan Rome, or by dismissing it as, "merely a retelling of the sixth Egyptian plague of boils,"[16] need to read it again. The things mentioned above are merely the tip of the iceberg. The printing and publication industries of the world are glutted with vicious, anti-God, atheistic, subversive, immoral, and destructive propaganda of every evil kind. Every grocery store has its magazine section devoted to the secularization and corruption of humanity. The movies and entertainment business have so far been corrupted that there is hardly any market for decent and helpful material.

Likewise, the art, and even the music of the world, have been lowered to a level of jungle rhythm, guttural screaming, and the mouthing of obscenities. The art forms of our day betray a ruptured, fractured, and broken culture.

All over the world, evil religious cults are springing up. What are these but more "stinking ulcers"? Recently, in Houston, "The Church of Atheism" was unveiled. Satan has so perverted the laws and opinions of mankind that such monstrosities are endowed with all of the rights and privileges that should belong to righteousness and truth.

The bitter delusions of Marxism are being peddled all over the earth by means of every device of propaganda and subversion ever invented by Satan. But why go on? It would take a library to describe what is meant by the bowl of the wrath of God being poured out upon the earth. How about all those learned men who see nothing here except some ancient historical event?

We do not offer this interpretation as meaning that "the end of time is upon us" or that the final judicial hardening of the race of mankind has already occurred. Nor, are the things we have pointed out intended as an affirmation, for it is not true, that all art, music, literature, publications, entertainment, etc., are evil. Thanks to the God of heaven through Christ, there are still many wonderful, beautiful, and uplifting things available in every one of these fields; and it could be that the complete fulfillment of this prophecy lies yet a great distance into the future, or that the things we have understood as pertaining to the whole world could be merely the astounding perversions that mark the decline of our own isolated culture in America. Therefore, we make no claim whatever that this bowl of wrath, or any of the others, is totally fulfilled by the aberrations noted.

However, our interpretation is that the bowls of wrath mean exactly the type of moral and spiritual pollution of the total human environment that we have attempted to point out. It is not merely that lust, vulgarity, pornography, violence, perversion, and obscenity are present in our culture. They have always been present in greater or lesser extent in every culture. What is alarming today is the toleration, acceptance, and justification of such things, even to the extent of their being advocated and encouraged by and political institutions; and that is what signals a frightening new aspect of such wickedness today. It could be later than we think.

The festering, malignant, noisome ulcers which are breaking out over the earth are represented as hurting the worshippers of the beast, the followers of Satan. How is this true? The parasitic and destructive nature of all satanic "sores" causes them to hurt all kinds of legitimate and constructive endeavors. The "stinking ulcer" of the late Jim Jones' Communist Camp in Guyana literally destroyed everyone connected with it. Look what communism has done all over the world.

In the interpretation of this first bowl, we have also, in part, the interpretation of all seven, for they are concurrent, intermingled, mutually supported; and each one is but a part of the total corruption of mankind's moral and spiritual environment.

[13] William Barclay, The Revelation of John (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), p. 126.

[14] James Moffatt, op. cit., p. 446.

[15] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Vol. 20, Revelation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 193.

[16] Martin Rist, The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XII (New York-Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1957), p. 481.