At the end of the world, right at the close of the period of history that the Bible calls the great tribulation there is judgment coming to this earth. There are three judgments during the last days of human history.
1. The seven seal judgments
2. The seven trumpet judgments.
3. The seven bowl judgments.
There is a big difference between the bowl judgments and the other judgments. The seal judgments and the trumpet judgments will be limited judgments. But the bowl judgments are total judgment. The bowl judgments will stop man’s ungodly ways upon earth. PRAYER
READ 1. This voice must be the voice of God. We can’t help but note that this is the wrath of God being poured upon the earth. This is it. God is just and righteous. We can be sure that He will make right all the wrongs and injustices in the world. He will not allow ungodliness and evil to continue on and on without being stopped.
READ 2. The first bowl judgment is poured out on earth. What is it? Some kind of ulcerous sore. People will be afflicted with some kind of festering, cancerous sore. The idea of it all is that the sores will be harmful and malignant, open wounds and foul smelling. Painful, ugly, humiliating and embarrassing. The sores will cause agony and torture, giving no rest during the day or night. They will be incurable.
But note that the judgment is poured out only on the antichrist and his followers, only on the people who receive the mark of the beast and worship him and his government. The first person we probably think of is Job but Job was not being punished. It was not God’s wrath that fell on Job. These sores are more like the judgment of boils that fell on the Egyptians.
READ 3. The second judgment is poured out on the sea. Theologians believe this is referring to the Mediterranean Sea and not to all the oceans of the world. If it meant all the oceans, little human life of any kind could survive. That would affect the coming judgments as you will see. However, many commentators feel this does refer to all the seas of the world and that the next judgment refers to all the fresh waters of the earth. This is one of those areas where we will have to wait and see.
We have to remember that the center of the antichrist’s power will be in the Middle East or in some nation of Europe that was part of the old Roman Empire. So the concentration of judgments will probably be there. The sea will become some kind of blood red contamination and all sea life will be killed. Imagine the sight of all sea life washing ashore, the smell and sight of death everywhere.
Imagine all the fishing industries going bankrupt and the effect it will have on the economy. We have seen that this is possible because of the red tide that sometimes strikes the coastlines. This shows us that the sea can be contaminated. In the end, the whole sea will be destroyed. We also saw the waters of the earth turn blood red as one of the plagues on Egypt.
READ 4-7. The third bowl judgment is poured out on the fresh waters. Again, theologians believe that this will be on the fresh waters near the antichrist and his followers. Otherwise, all of earth would die in a few days. This is the same judgment that fell on the sea. This means that there will be little water available throughout the Middle East and Europe where his power is concentrated.
Just think of the water and food that will have to be transported and airlifted into the Middle East and Europe from other parts of the world. As we will see later on, the armed forces will no doubt be supplied first.
First, note that these judgments are predictions about what is going to happen in the end time. So there are always people who hear about the judgments and question them because they don’t fit in with their idea of God. To them God is too loving to ever do such a thing.
Jesus knew there would be objections to these judgments. So right here in the middle of the third judgment, Jesus Christ reminds John and us why God is going to pour out His wrath on the earth and destroy it. There are actually two reasons:
1. First, because of the mass murder that will be launched in the end time. We have already talked about the great holocaust that will take place.
2. The second reason God will pour out His wrath is because God is true and righteous. He is just. So in the end time God will be confronted with all this evil that He can no longer take. He is going to punish all these evil-doers.
So the angel declares that God is perfect and just and that He executes exactly what the ungodly and evil deserve.
READ 8-9. It speaks for itself. Severe heat and radiation from the sun are going to scorch the ungodly and evil. There will be a heat wave unlike anything the earth has ever known. The sun will burn and scorch people with blazing, fierce heat. The idea is that the weather will be so hot that it will be like burning in a hot oven.
But the ungodly will still not repent. They will do what unbelievers have done when things go bad—they will curse and blaspheme God. Now this might strike home with some. What do you say when you miss the nail and hit your finger with the hammer?
No matter what it is, the response of the unbeliever is usually to curse and blaspheme God. It gives us something to think about, doesn’t it? In the end time, the ungodly will not repent any more than they do today. The will only curse the name of God.
READ 10-11. The 5th bowl judgment is poured out on the throne of the antichrist. The whole kingdom of the antichrist and his followers will be full of darkness. This is not referring to spiritual darkness, but to some phenomena that blots out the light and heat of the day. This is a drastic change from the scorching light and heat of the 4th judgment.
Some darkness, some thick, heavy pitch black darkness will fall on the whole kingdom of the antichrist. This judgment seems to exclude the nations who are not actively included in the antichrist’s kingdom. Remember, there will be many nations cooperating with the antichrist but who are not actively included in his kingdom, not in the plotting of his murderous evil.
Of course they are guilty by association. But they are apparently spared some of the judgments because they are not quite as guilty. But their armies will be destroyed and their governments and cities utterly destroyed at Armageddon.
We must note that all the bowl judgments could be world-wide. The entire world, to some degree, will be cooperating with the antichrist. He will be sitting at the head of some organization like the United Nations or the European Common Market. So the seat and kingdom of the antichrist could refer to the whole world.
The minor prophet Joel predicted this heavy, black darkness in Joel 2: 1-2. READ.
Christ predicted that the sun and all other light would be darkened. Matthew 24:29.
The suffering will be excruciating. There will be the suffering of sores, thirst, filth, and smell of water pollution, scorching heat, and now pitch black darkness will cause the antichrist and his followers to blaspheme God even more. The torment will be so great that they will be gnawing their tongue. But they still will not repent. They will remain hardened in their wickedness and rebellion against God. EXPLAIN “HARDENED.”
I noticed that there is a similarity between these plagues and those used against Egypt before the Exodus. The plague of sores, the plague of water turning like blood, and the plague of pitch black darkness.
READ 12-16. The 6th bowl judgment is poured out on the Euphrates River. Note in verse 16 the purpose of the 6th judgment. It is to prepare the nations and armies of the world for the great battle of Armageddon.
This is actually a judgment of deception, not of affliction. Armageddon is the last great war of the earth which will be instigated by the antichrist and his government. There are 6 things that we need to note about the 6th bowl judgment.
1. The judgment dries up the great Euphrates River. The Euphrates is the longest and by far the most important river of western Asia. It’s 1,780 miles long and ranges from 300 to 1200 yards wide. It ranges from 10 –30 feet deep. From the Persian Gulf inland it can be navigated by small vessels for about 1200 miles. This is a big river. How is it dried up?
Man can stop the flow of rivers by dams and by diverting the water elsewhere. The forces of nature can dry up a river. Drought, intense heat from the sun, earthquakes and so forth. Just how the river will be dried up—by man, by some natural source, or by the hand of God—is not known for sure. But Scripture clearly says that the waters of the river will be dried up.
2. The reason for the drying up of the Euphrates is to allow a great armed confederation of nations to form and march against Israel and to exterminate the Jews. This confederation is called the kings of the east. No matter how sophisticated weapons get, it takes a soldier to set foot on a land to conquer it. So a foot soldier is needed to conquer a nation. It appears that God will dry up the Euphrates River so that it will help the advancement of troops.
3. The 3rd fact about the 6th bowl judgment is that there is a source behind the confederation of nations. It says that all the nations of the earth are going to be involved in the great battle of Armageddon. The kings from the north, the south, the east and the west will be involved.
Armies will gather from every nation with each taking sides to protect its own interest. The point of conflict may be oil in the Middle East or the utter insanity of the antichrist to exterminate a whole people like the Jews, or it may be some other interest that we know nothing about yet. But the point is that in the last days all the nations of the world will converge upon the Middle East and be stationed within the borders of Palestine at Meggido.
Note what is behind the whole scene: evil spirits. Evil spirits are giving power to the mouth of the antichrist and his false prophet. This means the power to influence and deceive the leaders of other nations.
The description of the evil spirits as frogs symbolizes the ability to leap and spread the deception from the devil to the antichrist and to his false prophet and then to each of the nations. The picture is that of the demons working miracles. What kind of miracles? Scripture doesn’t say.
But the result of the evil spirits is the gathering together of all the armies of the world to the place in Palestine called Armageddon or the valley and mountain of Meggido. That is the great valley that runs through the middle of Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. It’s about 200 miles long and ten miles wide. You might remember us talking last time about the blood running 200 miles and up to the bridles of the horses.
4. The 4th fact about the 6th bowl judgment is the day of Armageddon. The day when all this will happen is called by Scripture “the great day of God, the Almighty.” This is the day that the armies of the world will be destroyed. It’s the day when Jesus Christ will consummate this age of grace. Time and history as we know it will be no more.
5. The 5th fact is the great warning of Christ to the people of the earth: watch and be prepared. Only those who have kept themselves unspotted from the worldliness of this earth and from following the antichrist will escape the terrible judgment coming.
Jesus told us that He is returning to earth as a thief, totally unexpected. Just when He is coming back is not known—not by anyone. So we must watch and be prepared. If nothing else will, this one fact should cause us all to live a more righteous life. Next time you are involved or tempted to be involved in something that is wrong, ask yourself, “What if during this act, Jesus returned? What would He think of me then?”
6. The 6th fact about the 6th bowl judgment is the place of the great battle. It’s called Armageddon. This fact tells us precisely where this battle will take place. It is the great valley of Megiddo in Palestine.
READ 17-21. The 7th bowl judgment is poured out on the air or atmosphere. The very air that man breathes is affected, it is poisoned. The very breath of life is taken from him. Three points about this and we will stop.
1. God’s thundering voice announces, “It is done.” The judgment on all the ungodly and evil armies of this world is seen consummated. All the armies of the ungodly and evil nations are wiped out by the judgment of God.
2. Nature breaks loose in the most terrifying devastation and horror imaginable. The most awesome and spectacular display of the power and glory of God is launched. There will be violent storms and a world-wide catastrophic earthquake. Imagine an earthquake that will violently affect the whole world.
a. The great city of Jerusalem will be shaken by the earthquake and divided into three parts, that is, utterly destroyed. Babylon, the capital of the antichrist, will collapse and be broken up into three parts. It will be utterly destroyed.
b. There will be whole cities throughout the nations of the world that will collapse into utter ruin.
c. The great world capital, Babylon, will be remembered by God, and He will especially pour upon her the cup and fierceness of His wrath.
d. Much of the earth will literally break up some islands and mountains will disappear.
e. The storms will rain great hail storm out of heaven weighing up to 10 lbs.
3. There is the reaction of the ungodly and evil survivors around the world. They still blame and curse God, and still don’t repent. We would expect at this point repentance, but the ungodly and evil of the last days will be as hard and stubborn as the ungodly and evil are today.
