Revelation 16:6

for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood hast thou given them to drink: they are worthy.

For they poured out the blood of saints ... Violence has a way of destroying itself through the operation of the divine law of retribution. Where were the saints and prophets of God murdered? Almost without exception, they were murdered in earth's great cities, indicating that we are on the right track in our interpretation of the rivers and fountains. God will reward ruthless, barbarous, violent cultures with a liberal dose of their own medicine. They shed innocent blood; very well, God will give them blood to drink.

For they are worthy ... This carries the meaning that wicked, hardened men fully deserve the divine sentence of wrath being executed upon them. Conspicuous in the present day is the blurred sense of justice. There are many now who do not believe that anyone is worthy of punishment, no matter what were their crimes. The "Reign of Terror" in Paris during the French Revolution was brought about primarily from the reluctance or outright refusal of legitimate authority to punish criminals. "Had Louis XVI been the tyrant that the extremists accused him of being, there would have been no Revolution."[21] "France had a revolution because she tolerated and invited every conceivable kind of dissension,"[22] even that of the mob murder of duly elected assemblymen of the central government! A society that is incapable of taking care of its Murats will inevitably perish.

[21] Stanley Loomis, Paris in Terror (Philadelphia and New York: The J. S. Lippincott Company, 1964), p. 102.

[22] Ibid.