The Seven Bowls Part 4

REVELATION 16 v 1-9

Do we regularly acknowledge who God is?

The bowl judgments are God's final and complete judgments on the earth. There are many similarities between the bowl and trumpet judgments, but there are three main differences.

1)  The bowl judgments are complete whereas the trumpet judgments are partial.

2)  The trumpet judgments still give unbelievers an opportunity to repent but the bowl judgments don not.

3)  Mankind is indirectly affected by the trumpet judgments; the bowl judgments directly affect the whole of mankind and directly attacked by the bowl judgments.

In Jewish culture there was a superstition about magical bowls of either curse or blessings. The bowls in Revelation would have been seen as bowls of curse. Not all Jews believed this but John probably knew about it so he doesn't believe in magical bowls but to get the message to Jews and gentiles Jesus tells John the image of a bowls which these judgements come from. Just as the trumpets represent a warning sign of the final judgment.

As each of these bowls is poured out more and more destruction gets poured out upon the world. Each bowl destroys another thing - Bowl 1 affects the people with sores on their bodies, Bowl 2 turns the see to blood, Bowl 3 the rivers and springs turn to blood and Bowl 4 intensifies the sun so it starts to burn people and the land. Each angel that pours a bowl but they first glorify God and verbalise some of His characteristics. They glorify God just as they are about to pour out His judgment on the earth. One of the angels doesn't do it begrudgingly; they all do it with the right attitude. They know God is righteous and just, they recognise Him as being these things.

We may sometimes not fully understand God and why He does things in certain ways but all I know is that He will always do the right thing in the right way even if we don't think it’s right.

Do we acknowledge God for who he is even when the times are tough or we don't understand what is going on? Embrace the mystery of God and glorify Him with our lives!