Today’s passage: Revelation 16
Helpful thoughts:
- Here is a chart for the seven bowls of God’s wrath.
- The first four bowls correlate with the first four trumpet judgments. The difference being that the trumpet judgments were restrained to the destruction one-third of their areas respectively. The bowl judgments are total in nature. Nothing is spared.
- In the description of the seal and trumpet judgments, there were breaks (interludes) between the sixth and seventh judgment. This is not so with the bowl judgments. The time for God’s wrath has come with no more delay.
- As striking as these judgments are, they are met with an equally striking reality. The people who are under these judgments continually refuse to repent.
- Verse 9 – “…and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”
- Verse 11 – “…and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.”
- Verse 14 – “…who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.” (The kings and people rally to fight against God.)
- Verse 21 – “…and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.”
Questions to consider:
- If these bowl judgments are to be interpreted literally, they must be in the future (Nothing like this has happened in the history of the world). What will the world look like, what will be left should these things happen just as they are recorded in this passage?
- In the height of God’s judgment, what is sinful man’s response? What does the heart/the will of man do in the face of God and under His just judgment?
- Why then must it be by the grace of God that we are saved (Ephesians 2:1-9)? Why have your and why will you (if you are a follower of Christ) respond differently to the reality of who God is?