We come to the final or
seventh bowl of the wrath of God. The seventh angel now pour out his bowl into
the air. This is talking about the space between heaven and earth, the scope of
the spirits, power, beliefs, ideas, philosophies, mindsets and influences. John
tells us that the work is now complete. So as in Revelation 8:5 and 11:19, here
also a sequence of judgments takes place. An earthquake, sounds of thunder, and
lightning resulted from the collision that took place between heaven and earth.
And Rome, the great city is split into three, other cities also collapse like a
pack of cards and mountains and islands just disappear.
In describing all these
catastrophes, John is depicting the downfall of the whole social and political
system. He was not talking about the collapse of the physical world. In the
human society great and horrible events will happen, and the most appropriate
way to describe it is in terms of huge and heavy hailstones and quakes. God
will allow the lies at the core of human society to be exposed. There will be a
great shift in different human systems, and everything will be moved and
changed, that nothing will ever remain the same again. In the midst of all this,
God will remember Babylon the great and John will elaborate it in Revelation
17-18. The judgement of this city that had become the world’s whore is included
in this seventh bowl of wrath. We can only appreciate what it means to be the
people known as the bride, only when the terrifying distortion of this great
whore has been exposed and destroyed.
Here we return again to
verse 15, the verse that John slips in to keep us focused. “Behold, I am coming
like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that
he will not walk naked and men will not see his shame.” Let us stay alert! As we
see the changing tides of world events, let’s remember Peter’s call to stay sober
minded, for the purpose of prayer in this last day.
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