In Revelation 15-16, we see seven final plagues. The seven, very difficult plagues finalize God’s wrath and no one is allowed to enter the temple until all seven of the plagues are finished. Times will be so rough while God waits for people to still come to Him. He wants those who don’t believe yet to see a mighty God who loves them and wants them as His own; a God who wants them to allow Him, in His grace to deliver them. Yet people refuse to repent and refuse to worship and glorify God. They are angry and curse Him because of what they experience and nothing catches their attention. And as a result they will suffer for all eternity.
John’s Vision Of The End of God’s Wrath
Chapter 15 begins with John seeing another great sign. John sees seven angels that are each given a bowl and each bowl contains and then pours out a specific plague. There are seven plagues, poured out on different locations around the earth.
Then John sees what looks like a sea of glass that glows with fire. Some are victorious over the beast, its image and the number of his name (666). And those victorious ones are given harps and they sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Here are the words to their song as John recounts it.
The Song of Moses and the Lamb
Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Revelation 15:3 & 4
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are Your ways,
King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord,
And bring glory to Your name?
For You alone are holy
All nations will come
And worship before You
For Your righteous acts have been revealed.
John sees the temple open in heaven. Once it is opened, seven angels, clothed in shining linen and a golden sash, come out of the temple with the seven plagues. One of the four living creatures gives each angels a bowl filled with God’s wrath. In addition to the angels each receiving their bowls, the temple is filled with smoke from God’s glory and His power and no one can enter the temple until all of the seven plagues are completed.
God Is Just in His Judgments
Chapter 16 then details:
- Each angel
- Where he poured his bowl
- What happened in each plague
There is also dialogue in several of the plagues. God has some serious conversation in many of these plagues. Great judgment occurs and people face great pain. An example of the dialogue in the third plague is when the angel poured his bowl on the rivers and springs and they became blood. The angel in charge of the waters says:
“You are just in these judgments, O Holy One,
you who are and who were;
6 for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets,
and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.”7 And I heard the altar respond:
“Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.”
Revelation 16:4-7
The Seven Angels and Seven Plagues
Below, you will find a list of the seven angels, the seven plagues and the details around those plagues:
| Angel # | Poured Bowl Out On… | What Happened? |
| 1 | Land | Sores broke out on those who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image |
| 2 | Sea | The sea turned into blood and killed every living thing in the sea |
| 3 | Rivers and Springs | Became blood |
| 4 | Sun | The sun allowed to scorch people with fire. It was such intense heat. They still cursed the name of God who had control over all of these plagues and refused to repent and glorify Him |
| 5 | Throne of the Beast | The throne and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. The people gnawed their tongues in agony. They still cursed God because of their pain and agony, but refused to repent of what they did. |
| 6 | Euphrates River | The water was dried up to clear a way for the kings to travel from the east. 3 impure spirits that looked like frogs, came out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. |
| 7 | Air | Out of the temple came a loud voice saying “it is done.” Thunder, lightening, earthquakes like none other, mountains were completely destroyed, no islands any longer, hailstones weighing 100 lbs. fell on people. They cursed God because of the hailstones, they were so terrible. |
Is This Judgment Fair?
God is just in His judgments! Many people in our culture today view God from extremes. They claim that God is too judgmental (A mean old man with a long beard looking over the battlements of heaven waiting to throw a lightening bolt). Others claim that He is only a God of love (A teddy bears and rainbows God of Love who turns a blind eye to anything we do wrong). But He is neither. He requires obedience, gives judgment and does so out of love for us. He and He alone know what we were created for and what limitations He designed into us. Only He knows what is truly best for us. He doesn’t tolerate His enemy and those who follow His enemy because He cares about us and He wants the best for us, His children. So, He is going to give what is deserved. He is THE true and just God.
Cursing God and Refusing to Repent
On to the fourth plague that poured onto the sun. It scorched people with intense heat.
“They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.”
Revelation 16:9
Now, onto the Fifth Angel and Plague
“The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in agony 11 and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.”
Revelation 16:11
Do you see a pattern here? People in both of these specific plagues listed, cursed the name of God and refused to repent of what they did and refused to repent and glorify Him. That is a whole lot of pain and trouble to go through to still curse God and refuse to repent!!!! It is a lot of stubbornness and pride to not repent and choose to glorify God instead.
Armageddon
Verses 13 and 14 mention impure and demonic spirits who gather kings together for a battle, which is Armageddon.
The Seventh Angel, The End of God’s Wrath Displayed
The Seventh angel comes out into the air and from the temple, a loud voice comes. This is the end of God’s wrath! There is terrible lightening, thunder, the worst earthquake ever. The great city splits into 3 parts, the cities of the nations collapsed. “God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of His wrath.” He trampled on Babylon, they saw His great judgment!
Every island fled away and mountains could not be found! This is one incredible natural disaster after the next! Then there is hail! Each hailstone was about 100 pounds and fell on people! Can you imagine? Ouch!!!! Still, they cursed God on account of the hail because it was so terrible. I think by now, although people are so upset and in enormous pain, that some would realize that God is trying to get their attention. I don’t see anything in the Bible after these specific plagues about the people affected, that anyone repented, but only that they cursed God. They were angry and bitter.
Your View of Eternity
So, how serious is your faith, in your view of eternity? Do you live for now and think that someday you will think more seriously about it, but for now, you will just enjoy life as it is, here on earth? If you have never accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that you do have a relationship with God.
Truly having a relationship with God isn’t “fire insurance”, so that all of these terrible things listed in these two chapters and throughout the book of Revelation, don’t happen to you personally. If you do only have a relationship with God for this reason, I recommend that you back through the Bible and understand what salvation really is, or go to a Pastor of a solid Bible-believing church. What will it take to get your attention? Some people will never choose to know the Lord and become a believer in Christ.
God came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly (John 10:10)He is still waiting for you to come. Difficult things in our lives will happen, but we don’t need to curse God and be angry at Him for the rest of our lives and choose to not repent, to change our life. He wants good for us, not evil! Whoever refuses to believe will suffer for all eternity in very difficult ways. Will you choose today, if you don’t know Him yet, to believe? There are only so many opportunities and we don’t know when He will come again to come get those who believe. Please let me know, if I can help in any way!
More To Read In Heartshare…
More To Read In Heartshare…
The more I look at the world around us right now, the more I see people bitter, confused, angry and some of their philosophies and world views make no sense and are not Scriptural. The world is only going to get worse. In my lifetime alone, I have seen things go downhill so fast and it isn’t even just circumstances like inflation, but people’s hearts are darkened. Some things they say like on social media are so far out on left field it is unbelievable. They aren’t thinking for themselves, but believe what they hear others saying like friends, social media, liberal college professors. It is only going to get worse. Even perspectives concerning taking a job or working a job are absurd. We live in a very entitled world right now with the current newest generation.
I have two daughters who are managers/assistant managers. One says that people are coming into work, into their jobs that they signed an application for, thinking that their hours and times are negotiable. If they signed up for certain hours they are, but they can’t get people to even come in on their scheduled shift time if they don’t “feel like it” or if they would be working with someone that they don’t like to work with. It is really insane. Both daughters have had to fire employees recently and they are in two different states. It is happening around the country.
Did this help at all?
There is already plenty going on right now, enough that some believe that we are already in the middle of the tribulation. But I haven’t heard the trumpet sound and the dead in Christ rising first. There are specifics that will happen. I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture personally.
I also think that perhaps people’s hearts are so hardened that very likely, they may not believe because they were so bitter. I don’t believe at this point that God ever just doesn’t allow them to come to Him, but they are hardened so much. I don’t think there is really a line drawn that after the Mark, they can’t be saved. Does this make sense? Because there is so much bitterness that people keep cursing God and refusing to repent. It’s hard to say that it is necessarily all of the people left or not. It is very likely though that there is too much hardening of their hearts. I was asking my husband about this just now. He sees contextually that being “victorious over the beast’ means that they were people who did not take the beast. It isn’t an easy thing to know for sure. I think it is reason though to know that we know Him as our personal Lord and Savior and that we tell others about Him.
I hope that this helps. I try to not be too dogmatic on some of this but to really know Christ and to read and study Scripture and ask for help when I don’t understand. The rest I have to leave with the Lord.
People do seem to look at God in one extreme or another; a mean old man or a teddy bear, but you’re right. He’s not either extreme. He’s a God of love, but he also is a just God and won’t tolerate evil. I have a question for you. I get so confused about the timeline of Revelation. I have no idea if most of the trumpets, woes, etc. happen before or after the middle of the tribulation when the Antichrist shows his true colors. If people have already taken the mark of the beast, my understanding is they can’t be saved after that. What are your thoughts about when these things happen. Thank you.
I believe strongly that the rapture(when the trumpet sound) occurs before the tribulation. Then many of these other difficult things like the woes and judgments and plagues take place. I understand that they will take place during most of the tribulation and we will see how events come to place. Revelation has a lot of symbolism and I used to believe that there was a specific order to every single event, but they could all be happening close to the same time. There isn’t complete clarity in that and I believe that God doesn’t have us know all of this ahead of time.
So John says in Chapter 15 that “Some are victorious over the beast, its image and the number 666. Some people believe that the mark is permanent. This verse says that some are “victorious”. I personally understand that if they are victorious, they get through either having had it but still able to receive Christ or they never got the mark because they received Christ and chose not to get it. As far as not able to be saved if they had the mark, in the plagues, I see where some people continued to be bitter and curse God. It does not appear to me that everyone did curse God because of all of the terrible things that were happening like the boils, the sea turning to blood, the sun scorching them. At the end, the people who were not going to believe, cursed God, it only got worse for them and they refused to repent. The very statement that some were victorious over the beast tells me that some still came to Christ and were saved. God still didn’t want any to perish but all to come to believe and have eternal life. He kept sending these plagues I believe to still give one opportunity over the next for people to have a chance to believe, similar to what He did in Egypt with Pharoah and the children of Israel. God kept sending one plague after the next. Eventually Pharoah said “just go” basically but then he came after them again when Moses had to part the Red Sea.
The urgency of this appeal is clear. We are becoming what we will be for eternity.
Lewis said that the redeemed will look back and, even through the troubles of this life, say we were always in Heaven.
The lost will look back and say they were always in hell.
And BOTH will be speaking truthfully.
Very true
Wonderfully written. Yes, the biggest earthquake ever. Most just ignore just what is going to happen and we have the signs right now in front of us. Ouch! Big hailstones or boulders! You said it well. Time for all to wake up!