Revelation 16:1-2 (NIV) Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath on the earth.” The first angel went out and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.
Festering Sores
Revelation 16:2 describes how “ugly, festering sores broke out on the people.” Remember, John is a man who lived in the 1st century. He did not understand 21st century technology nor did his vocabulary include words to adequately describe Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, nuclear fallout, nuclear winters, or the effects of radiation on the human body. Radiation sickness has many symptoms, but it cannot be denied the “ugly, festering sores” that John describes are not a disease or infection but are the results of a nuclear detonation.
Radiation damages tissue quickly and can cause bleeding from the mouth, nose, and gums. Burns on the skin that resemble malignant, festering sores can appear in highly radiated areas. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Radiation can damage your stomach, intestines, blood vessels and bone marrow which lowers your body’s ability to fight infection. Radiation sickness is quite painful, can lead to a long agonizing death and can be contracted in a variety of ways.
Radiation exposure for those in the vicinity of a nuclear explosion are almost guaranteed to pick up a high dose of radiation, which could lead to a drawn out, painful death. But those who are further away from the detonation are not necessarily safe. They too can die from radiation sickness. Fallout from a nuclear detonation will rain down on unsuspecting victims near ground zero, but if the fallout gets into the jet stream it can easily drift for hundreds or even thousands of miles. But the fallout from a global thermonuclear war would react differently than fallout from a single detonation because the winds would spread high concentrations of radiated debris from multiple detonations throughout all corners of the globe.
And what about those individuals who were lucky enough to live in an area not targeted and the fallout from a nearby nuclear detonation drifted away from them? Well, radiation sickness for these survivors could come from contaminated water sources or food supplies. Unsuspecting victims could be drinking water from rivers, streams, tributaries, and underground springs which could have been contaminated upstream. Or they hunt and eat an animal who migrated away from a contaminated area. Nobody will know if their food and water sources are pure and free from any contamination unless they have special equipment. Radiation is a silent killer. You cannot see radiation, nor do you know if you have radiation sickness until you begin showing signs which in many cases, without the proper drugs, will lead to death.
Many will be vaporized instantaneously when a nuclear device is detonated. These will be the lucky ones. Those who are left to fend for themselves in a desolate, radiated world will have to endure unimaginable hardships every day just to survive. Yes, war is hell, but World War III will bring hell to every person on the planet.
