The Seven Years Tribulation & God’s Wrath

The Seven Years Tribulation & God’s Wrath

No single Bible verse directly states the reason why God sends the seven-year tribulation as a distinct event. The concept of a seven-year tribulation is primarily an interpretive framework drawn from various passages such as Daniel 9:24-27 and Revelation 6-19, and its purposes are described across multiple passages rather than in one definitive statement. While it doesn’t explicitly says the reason why God sends the tribulation, it implies the tribulation is part of God’s plan to judge sin and establish His kingdom.

Revelation chapters 6 to18 describe the tribulation’s judgments as expressions of God’s wrath against unrighteousness, and they focus on the effects. The seven-year Tribulation is a period where God's wrath is indeed poured out on the earth, which described a series of increasingly severe judgments (seals, trumpets, and bowls) that come upon the world. People on earth, in response to the devastating judgments (seals), cry out to be hidden from "the wrath of the Lamb" and acknowledge that "the great day of God’s wrath has come." This is a direct, on-the-ground recognition of God's active wrath during this period. The final series of judgments are explicitly called "the seven bowls of God's wrath," leaving no ambiguity about their source and nature of God’s wrath mentioned in the Book of Revelation. The subsequent descriptions of these plagues further confirm their punitive, divine origin.

The seals, trumpets, and bowls in Revelation 6–18 represent God’s escalating judgments on a sinful, Christ-rejecting world during the 7-year Tribulation, with the most intense wrath concentrated in the final 3.5 years (Great Tribulation). These judgments coincide with God’s wrath or the great day of His wrath that is to come in the Tribulation, and who can stand God’s wrath as mentioned in Revelation 6:17.Thus, when God unleashed His wrath in Tribulation, countless people worldwide will die of famines, plagues, pestilences, natural disasters, among others:

Judgment Seals - Revelation Chapter 6

Verses 1 to 8 - Description: Four Horsemen (conquest, war, famine, death)

Verses 9 to 11 - Description: Martyrdom of saints

Verses 12 to 17- Cosmic disturbance: (great earthquake, sun turns black, moon became blood, stars of heaven

fell, sky receded like scroll rolled up, every mountain and island moved out of its place

Result: Global chaos, mass death (1/4 of earth population killed, verse 8)

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Judgment Trumphets - Revelation Chapters 8 & 9

C8 V7 to 12 - Environmental disasters (hail with blood thrown on earth, 1/3 of earth set on fire and 1/3 of trees

and green grass burned, huge burning mountain thrown to sea, destroys 1/3 of all ships, 1/3 of sea

turn red, 1/3 of fish killed, great flaming star fell on 1/3 of rivers and springs, poisoned 1/3 of all

water on earth, numerous people died, 1/3 of sun-moon-stars strucked & 1/3 of them turned dark,

1/3 of day and night without light

C9 V1 to 11 - Demonic torment (locusts from the Abyss were released, men who don't have God's seal was

tormented for 5 months

C9 V15 to 19 - Army of 200 million kills 1/3 of mankind

Result: Nature and humanity devastated

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Judgment Bowls - Revelation Chapter 16

Verse 2 - Sores on worshippers of the Beast

Verses 3 to 4 - Seas/rivers/springs turned to blood, every living sea creature died

Verses 8 to 10 - Everyone scorched with great sun heat, darkness

Verse 12 - Euphrates rived dried up

Verses 13 to 16 - Demons conferred with all world rulers/their armies & gathers them in Battle of Armageddon

Verses 18 to 21 - Great-mighty-worst earthquake ever happened & unprecedented in human history, every island

fled away, mountains were not found

Result: Total collapse of society, final wrath before Christ return

Global catastrophes unlike anything in history that no man can live unless the days are shortened as written Matthew 24:21-22. The second half of the seven years Tribulation, or the last 3.5 years or the Great Tribulation is accompanied by unprecedented death tolls mentioned in Revelation 14:20: "And the wine press was trampled outside the city, and blood came out from the wine press, up to the horses' bridles, for a distance of 1,600 stadia." The verse speaks of the immense amount of blood spilled by countless people killed during the final great judgment of the wicked, particularly associated with the Battle of Armageddon that culminates the Tribulation. The symbolism and the imagery of a "winepress" is a powerful biblical metaphor for God's fierce wrath and judgment, where the wicked are "trampled" like grapes, and their "blood" flows out like wine. This symbolism is also found in Old Testament prophecies, such as Isaiah 63:1-6. The description of blood flowing "up to the horses' bridles" and for a distance of "1,600 stadia" (approximately 180-200 miles, or 290-320 kilometers) indicates an utterly massive and unprecedented slaughter of blood spilled by countless people. The message is undeniably one of immense carnage and bloodshed. It signifies a complete and devastating defeat of God's enemies. It certainly implies millions, if not billions, of people killed globally. As we discussed earlier, Revelation already describes a fourth of the earth's population dying from earlier judgments (Revelation 6:8), and then a third of the remaining mankind being killed by a specific army (Revelation 9:15, 18). The final judgment symbolized by the winepress would add to these numbers, or represent the culmination of many of them.