Many people doubt God s intention and ability to judge sin and to establish His righteous kingdom on the earth. Yet not one detail of His eternal agenda has been altered. He has promised to deal thoroughly with all sin and to place the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne in Jerusalem to rule the creation. He will literally move heaven and earth to accomplish His will. The Almighty has revealed His agenda to ultimately destroy the rebellion which now resists His sovereign domain. He has temporarily permitted the satanically led revolt as He allows time to redeem a remnant of humanity from judgment. But in due course, He will systematically bring the insurrection to a catastrophic end. The unrepentant will perish, but the repentant will enter into the joyful reign of their Savior and King. The Lord will ultimately bring an unequalled time of trouble on the earth known as the Tribulation. At that point, He will fully expose the treacherous heart of sinners and fully express His anger toward His enemies for all to see. The entire seven-year period will be horrific, but the second half will be of greatest intensity; its final days and hours being more than the rebellion can stand. The Tribulation s end is the topic of chapter 16. Here we find seven final and just acts of God. These are symbolized in the heavenly vision as shallow bowls full of His wrath ready to be dumped out rapidly on the earth.! 1
In these, the Lord strikes those loyal to the rebellion with boils (v. 2). Then He turns the oceans and all fresh water to blood (vv. 3-4). On top of this, He then increases the sun s heat while also blocking its light to create complete darkness (vv. 8-11). Despite all of this, the world s armies will be deceived by Satan, his Antichrist, and his False Prophet to make a final stand against the Lord Jesus Christ. They will gather in the land of Israel, and God will supernaturally dry up the Great River Euphrates to accommodate the movement of eastern nations (vv. 12-16). But there is yet one last bowl to be poured out, and that is the subject of Revelation 16:17-21. The seventh bowl judgment is designed to complete the preparations for Christ s glorious return to reign the world from Jerusalem. We will see His return in chapter 19 to deliver the final blow to His enemies. But before then, chapters 17 and 18 will give us another perspective of the bowl judgments. We find that heaven s kingdom advances unhindered, and the earth and its inhabitants will be made subject to the King of kings and Lord of lords.! 2
The Bowl Judgments - Part V The Seventh Bowl (vv. 17-21) At this point in John s vision, the seventh angel made his way forward and poured out his bowl into the air. While the stellar heavens have been shaken and the entire face of the earth has been devastated, God now turns His hand toward the earth s atmosphere. Why? In the context of this passage, it seems that it is to greatly alter its current configuration to produce a climate fit for the Millennial phase of the kingdom. As we will also see, God will alter the face of the earth for the same purpose. But first we discover from verse 17 that, a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done! With the seventh and final bowl comes a declaration from God Himself that His wrath is complete. Remember, the prelude to the bowl judgments in the previous chapter announced that these plagues would complete His wrath. That is, they would be enough to crush the rebellion and bring heaven s kingdom to earth. A literal translation is: It has been and will remain finished. It is reminiscent of Christ s words upon the cross as God s wrath poured out on His Son was completed (Jn. 19:30). On Calvary, Christ finished His purpose as the atoning Lamb of God for the sins of the elect. He bore the same wrath from God expressed historically on sinners in the Tribulation and experienced for eternity by all the unrepentant in hell.! 3
There will be one final act of rebellion at the end of the 1,000 year reign of Christ. Satan will be released from the bottomless pit and quickly attempt to gather forces to destroy the saints of God (20:7-10). However, God permits this only to highlight His glory in the ensuing Great White Throne Judgment (20:11-15) and the inauguration of the eternal state of the kingdom (21-22). For all intents and purposes, the Lord s wrath is complete and the kingdom begins with this final trumpet. With the end declared, verse 18 explains that there were noises thunderings lightnings; and there was a great earthquake. These are all expressions of wrath coming from God the furious rumblings of the firestorm of divine judgment that has fully come to the earth. They actually began in 4:5 as we saw God indicating that His mood was that of righteous anger toward sin. After the seventh seal was broken (8:1-6), we saw God s wrath again portrayed with identical imagery a response to the prayers of the martyred Tribulation saints. At that point, the Great Tribulation began with the trumpet judgments. Then, when the seventh trumpet sounded (11:15-19), and the victory of His kingdom was proclaimed, His anger reached its peak. This was again expressed as a loud storm accompanied by an earthquake and also hail. His anger was likewise noted as the sea of glass before His throne was mingled with fire in anticipation of the bowl judgments (15:2).! 4
The fierce wrath of God, anticipated earlier in John s vision, has now become a reality as the seventh bowl is poured out. Just as a terrible thunderstorm can be seen and heard on the horizon long before it comes upon those in its path, so God s wrath has long been an approaching storm on the horizon of history. Paul says in Romans 1:18: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. By the time the seventh bowl is ready to be dumped on the rebellion, sinners could not have suppressed the truth any more. In the face of such obvious expressions of God s anger, they will still blaspheme Him rather than repent. Man s suppression of truth has progressed over the course of history, and so has God s wrath progressed. It will reach its zenith with the seventh bowl judgment. So the storm on the horizon portends actual devastation on the earth in two phases: First, there is the great earthquake already mentioned. The end of verse 18 describes it as such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. Several earthquakes have occurred during the seven years of the Tribulation, but this surpasses all in magnitude so that it dramatically affects the entire globe. With this cataclysmic event, God will drastically change the landscape of the entire earth.! 5
How so? Verse 19 first informs us that the great city was divided into three parts. This refers to Jerusalem (cf. 21:10), which already experienced a violent earthquake that destroyed 1/10th of the city to kill 7,000 of God s enemies (11:13). This most severe seismic event, however, will not be for further destruction in the city, but for its improvement in preparation for Christ s soon arrival. Zechariah 14:1-8 teaches us that Jerusalem and its surrounding topography will indeed be altered. Exactly how it is divided into thirds is not clear. The Mount of Olives on its eastern side will be split in two (Zech. 14:4), one part moving N and the other moving S. The resulting valley will accommodate the perpetual living water that will flow from the temple area (Zech 14:8) eastward to the Dead Sea and westward to the Mediterranean (Ezek. 47:1-12). The city proper, or at least the temple mount, is evidently considered the prominent third part. Every other city on the earth will be destroyed by this mega quake, but God will literally elevate the city of the Great King over the rest of the world. Therefore we also read that the cities of the nations fell. This includes the capital city of the rebellion, great Babylon. Its destruction will be chronicled in the next two chapters. It is remembered before God, in this final plague, to give her the cup of wine of the fierceness of His wrath.! 6
This city, with whom the rest of the ungodly world allied itself, will receive the greatest measure of God s wrath (cf. Is. 13:6-13). It will be the hub of the world s commerce and the facilitator of its false religions until it replaces them all with the satanic worship of Antichrist (17:1-18). But the pride of the rebellion will literally fall flat as Jerusalem, the joy of all the earth, rises to greet heaven s King (Ps. 48:1-3). Indeed, with the seventh bowl, every island [will flee] away, and the mountains [will not be] found (v. 20). In preparation for the kingdom of Christ, all the world will be leveled as Jerusalem is exalted the mountains of the sea ( islands ) as well as all the high elevations on dry land. Obviously, the depressions that hold the oceans and other bodies of water will remain. The habitable surfaces will be rolling hills and plains. In fact, the whole earth will become as it was before the flood of Noah s day. The curse of sin on the creation will be reversed, and the world will be restored to Eden-like status. It will yield its produce in abundance, and people will live long lives in peace and safety under the just rule of the Lord Jesus Christ (Is. 11:1-10; 65:20, etc.). And this takes us back to the bowl being poured out into the air (v. 17). It seems that the great disturbance in the earth s atmosphere mentioned earlier will cause great hail to fall from heaven upon men (v. 21a). Each chunk of ice will weigh anywhere from 75 to 125 pounds ( a talent ). Needless to say, many will die as a result.! 7
Yet, even this will not produce repentance. The miraculous never causes anyone to turn from sin to God. Instead, it hardens their hearts in unbelief (e.g. Ex. 7-11; Lk. 16:31). Suffering will force the vile nature of the sinful heart to rise to the surface and express itself in the most blasphemous ways (cf. Rev. 16:8-16). That is precisely why those loyal to the rebellion blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great (v. 21b). However, it is this severe disturbance of the atmosphere that will likely also stabilize the earth s weather patterns for the Millennium. What God uses to absolutely devastate the rebellious world, He also uses to ready it for Christ and His loyal subjects! So, yes, God will judge the rebellion and establish His kingdom, and He will literally move heaven and earth to accomplish His purpose. No one can withstand the Almighty God and alter His agenda. Everything will conform to His will or be destroyed. The world that you and I know will not last. When God fully expresses His wrath toward sin, He will utterly destroy the world system and pull the earth out from under it. Have you humbled yourself, repented of your sins and placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? It is certain that you cannot rely on anything or anyone but God.! 8