Revelation 16:17-21

Revelation 16:17-21 – 2025 Jul 17

Tonight, we are considering the last of the seven bowl judgments, after which chapters 17 and 18 seem to backtrack and provide details of events that occurred at the time, but did not disrupt the narrative flow, if you know what I mean. What began in verse 2 of this chapter concludes this evening with another plague from Egypt.

Those seven plagues sent by the seven bowls in order are the (1) loathsome sores, painful, bleeding, pus-filled, disgusting, that have no cure but from God, which probably is what is described in the book of Job as Job having them. They continue with (2) the sea being turned to the blood of a corpse, all oily and smelly, with all the creatures of the sea dying, then (3) all of the fresh water turning to blood and all of heaven seeing that humanity deserves it because of all the people of God they had murdered. After that, (4) the sun scorched men with fire, perhaps a foretaste of the horrible ever-after waiting for those who will not repent of their sins and be forgiven by their faith in Christ, who died to atone for them. Then (5) the kingdom of the beast is targeted, and all of his followers were targeted with intense pain and darkness was forced on them because they rejected the light of God. God then (6) dried up the Euphrates River that would clear the way for the kings from the east to come to the great and final battle of the war named Armageddon, gathered by the three demon-frogs from the unholy triumvirate of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet with their deceptive and probably proud words.

This bowl is the completion of that final set of judgments that make up all of the stored-up wrath of God. As I have said in previous studies, there is more than one level of understanding to this. There is a literal reading which describes events, and there is often an accompanying allegorical understanding of it that represents the spiritual application of what is happening. I could be accused by some of an amillennial understanding of the book, when I also think much of this will be literal action being described. In fact, there are more levels of understanding when you consider the applications that can be made by individual readers versus congregations or groups who study the text. Those are only two places to derive meaning and understanding of the text. If you want other places to go, consider the geography involved, the historical context of the time this was written, the historical context of when this will happen, like that. However, to all the believers in the crowd, I will say that the Holy Spirit, in His job of guiding us to all truth and pointing us to our Lord Jesus, will help us make sense of this and help us keep it all straight.

With all of that said by way of introduction, I broke tonight’s text into the following thought units, or paragraphs:

KV17: The Completion of God’s Wrath

17: Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.”

17: “It Is Done.”

18-19a: The Great Ashakening

19b: Babylon “Remembered”

20: Where Have All The Mountains Gone?

21: Hundred-pound, Three-foot Hailstones

As a teacher in the house of God, I find I am often speaking of the terrible coming wrath of God and how I certainly do not want anyone to face it, because we just finished reading it, and I’m shaken to my core by it. The same happens when I read about the end of reality as we know it in Revelation 20 and when our Lord judges the dead at that time. What an awesome thing it is to see and consider the final judgment of wrath upon sin and all those who will not turn from it. God’s terrible power is on full display. The Wrath of God is being poured out on a sinful and deserving world. All of this takes place while not one of those that God chose in Him before the foundation of the world is permanently injured by anything they must endure, not even horrifying and painful beheadings as they are martyred. Talking about these things is very different than seeing them or undergoing them. This evening, we read the final pages of God’s acts of wrath, and they are instructive. Let’s get into the text here.

KV17: The Completion of God’s Wrath

17: Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.”

Isaiah says in the 28th chapter of his book of prophecy, “For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.” (v.21) We won’t take the time to look at it, but feel free to check the context on that. Isaiah is speaking of the reasons that God judges things, including humanity. He always performs these terrible actions with a different endpoint in sight, the perfecting of His harvest. It continues, “Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.” (vv 24-26) At the very beginning of this explanation, God calls this His “strange” work. His terrible judgments are not because He is a psychopath as some have suggested (Like Hollyweird actor Christian Bale, as a single example, we’ll be all night if I start talking about Atheist professor Richard Dawkins), but has a plan and endpoint in mind, and this is the most expedient way to do it with the most effective and pertinent result. In this text, as far as humanity is concerned, that goal is reached. Let’s have a look at the text.

17: “It Is Done.”

This is a different word from τετέλεσται. I know there is a symmetry of sorts if it is, but it is not the same word. That word means that a specific debt is paid in full or closed in terms of the books, and is a form of the word telios. The word used in this spot is γέγονεν, a form of ginomai, which signifies a change in condition, so what was under wrath is no longer under wrath because the wrath is complete, if that makes sense. That is what the angel meant when he said, “It is done.” This is not a debt per se. This is more like wages earned, which must now be paid out. It is a kind of financial opposite, and that’s what makes the most sense to me. I apologize if that is more confusing; that’s the simplest way I can explain this. Let’s see.

17: Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.”

This bowl is poured out upon the air, ἐπὶ. I point out that this is not the same as “into” the air, εἰς. It is a small difference, but I am uncertain of how this is such a debate as it is in the literature, because there are manuscripts that have both of these, and in either case, the air is the target. It is almost like these bowls were cleansing the former domains of evil inhabited by the dragon and his servants. The sea, the waters, the sun, the land of the kingdom of the beast, and now finally, the air is being cleansed. The air is the last thing cleansed. I really don’t know why that would be, but if you look, you can see the origins of the “four elements” of water, fire, earth, and air. Again, I don’t know what that all means, but all of that stuff had to come from somewhere. God and His Word would be the primary source material. (This is probably why so-called “higher” (I argue lower) “critics” try so much to subvert the Scriptures.)
A loud voice came out of the temple. Given that no one could enter the temple until these acts were completed, this is likely God the Father speaking. At this time, the Holy Spirit is probably energizing the saints, who are even now riding with their Lord into His great battle (not theirs) found in the previous verse.

18-19a: The Great Ashakening

Given that this is about an earthquake happening, I couldn’t resist a title from an article published by my friend and brother JD Hall, who, as you can see, has a penchant for clever references. This particular ashakening is record-breaking, as the text states. How bad will it be? I don’t know, but it is part of the completion of the wrath of God. Let’s look.

18: And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty.

The first thing we notice is that there is a great thunderstorm, but not an ordinary one. This is the storm to end all storms. There is some very violent action with the atmosphere, and to go back to my cleansing analogy, kind of like the hard scrubbing one must do when hand-washing a pot and the food is cooked onto the surface. Think of this now in the context of all the evil that must be caked on the Earth environment after seven years of evil running the show. Hard scrubbing makes sense. Puritan Commentator Matthew Poole points out that Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2)” and this is a direct assault on his power and kingdom to clean up his act for him, since he is unwilling to do so himself. This isn’t war; that is over for good. This is the start of cleaning up the mess.
The next thing we see is that “great ashakening” referred to in our title. The text tells us that it will be the strongest earthquake in all of human history (“since man came to be upon the face of the Earth”). I don’t know what that means in terms of the Richter scale, but I think it may either be a perfect 10 (wouldn’t that be just like the Lord, who does have a sense of humour) or it will simply be off the charts, in that it will be too big to be measured. There is conjecture I have heard over the years as to why the earth is shaking, and it may be that the Lord is beginning the geographic reforming of the planet. We will say more when we get to verse 20. The next verse begins to show the kind of planetary result I’m talking about.

19a: The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.

Some think (Like Jaimeson, Faucett, and Brown; Poole also) that this is Rome, the seat of the antichrist kingdom today. I rather think it is Jerusalem, because it is named in Rev. 11:8 as spiritual Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. “And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.” I am not alone in my opinion, shared by several commentators, including the late Dr. John MacArthur. I miss him, and I never met Him. It could be the actual city of Babylon. We don’t really know; these are just educated guesses.
It was split into three parts (the city). The falling of this “great city” into three parts marks a real victory. I will quote Puritan commentator Matthew Henry on this passage and say, “The church triumphant in heaven saw it and rejoiced; the church in conflict on earth saw it and became triumphant.”
I see this not just as a city, but that city is representative of a great immoral empire that covers the face of the earth. That city, no matter where it is, is the world center for idolatry according to Scripture. As such, this earthquake (also?) forms a part of the judgment upon sin and all those who will not turn from it to Christ in repentance and faith. In fact, it is clear that at some point, to do so will be made at least a de facto crime, if not an actual law, and one punishable by death by beheading. I don’t know the mechanism of that decapitation, and until it is actually established, I will leave that to imagination. I doubt it will be kind. This is what motivates the quote from Matthew Henry. The city split into three parts has no spiritual significance that I can track. Before you start yelling “trinity” at me, I did think of that, and I do suppose it could be indicative of the three individuals that are a part of the Godhead, but can you give significance to that without a lot of thought? I am not Calvin, and Calvin said nothing in his commentaries after Jude. I think it is simply the beginnings or the geophysical changes that are happening to modify Jerusalem for further changes when the Lord of Glory, our Lord Jesus, touches down on the Mount of Olives. Moving on.

19b: Babylon “Remembered”

The very first thing I thought when I read this part of verse 19 was that God did not “forget” Babylon or her crimes against the righteous or her crimes against God. We have heard it said that an Elephant never forgets. Multiply that by infinity, and you have God, who created the elephant. Not only was Babylon brought back into focus for her crimes, but so were all the cities of the world that had allied with her and assisted in her capital crimes against Heaven, its Liege Lord God, and its people, human and angel. Babylon was not forgotten. She was prioritized, maybe, but not forgotten.

19b: and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath.

The first thing we read here is that not only did this city, Babylon, fall, but so did all the cities of the nations. Think about the implications of that for a moment! New York falls. Atlanta falls. Chicago falls. Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary, Los Angeles, Sandiego, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Rome, Paris, London, Beijing, Moscow – all fall in that earthquake, and my list is far from exhaustive. The whole allied network is rolled up in one action, a devastating, never-recorded-before earthquake. Babylon will fall, and there will be no help to rise from any quarter. And there will be no help from the Conqueror, that glowing Man on the great white warhorse, His name written on His thigh, King of kings, and Lord of lords. All will fall. None will rise again without His help. These are like the friends of the schoolyard bully when he finally has someone stand up to him and put him down. They all scatter for cover lest the conqueror come for them. Oh, He will. Not one crime will be left unpunished.
Think about that while you begin to understand the significance of Babylon the great being remembered before God. What began millennia ago will be brought to an abrupt end right here. Who is Babylon the great? Babylon the great was a false religious system in this context, set up first on the plains of Shinar by a man we will call Nimrod, his actual name. He was the grandson of Ham, son of Noah, through Cush. Many cultures deify Nimrod and give him the wife Semiramis, who, according to the Greeks (without evidence, as per Josephus), built Babylon, the city. The land of Shinar is the current nation of Iraq, incidentally, and we know where the ruins of the city are, about 85 km SE of Baghdad. One of the minor prophets (not because what he had to say was less important, but it was much shorter in length), Zechariah, had this to say about how Babylon became the HQ for idolatry central. “Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and there two women were coming out with the wind in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. I said to the angel who was speaking with me, ‘Where are they taking the ephah?’ Then he said to me, ‘To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.’” This imagery has Scripturally been used as false religion, and because this is such an obscure text in amount and meaning, I think it may in fact refer to the false religion that blossoms into the false religion of the False Prophet, who points to the Beast, the son of the Dragon, of our unholy triumvirate.
This false religion of the Beast will attempt to wipe out all other belief systems, first by inclusion, and if that will not work, by extermination. Because all religions except Christianity are false, this means the others will fold into the growing religion nicely, except those silly Christians who don’t know what is good for them, apparently. Now, as a practitioner of that same Christianity, I must tell you that I believe in it with my whole being. When this kind of tyranny presents itself, it is my Christian duty to stand up and resist it with my words if possible, my means if need be, and my own life if necessary. I admit I do not like the idea of this looming in the future, but neither does everyone in our position. However, this Christian idea of truth and justice for all, and how only Christ is King, is going to cause every Christian left on earth to be hunted mercilessly by the Beast and his servants, and during this time in history, with a great deal of success. I believe that we will not be here for this, but if I am wrong and we are, then by all means, let us be that “church triumphant” that Matthew Henry spoke of. Overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and by not loving your life until the end. If they kill us, they are only sending us home. There will be a moment or so of pain, and then we will forever be in the presence of our Lord Jesus.
All of this will bring down the wrath of God Almighty upon those who will harm those He has bought for Himself, His testimony on Earth, and His chosen people. He will avenge all wrongs against Himself, especially those wrongs to His people whom He chose from before the foundation of the world. That is the fate awaiting Babylon, the no-longer-great. I have more to say on that in future studies, but for now, we will move on.

20: Where Have All The Mountains Gone?

I said I would have more to say about the earthquake that takes place as a result of this bowl judgment when we got to verse 20, and now we are here. Let’s jump into the text, because it relates to that.

20: And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

As I said earlier in verse 18, massive geophysical changes will take place at the time of the return of Jesus as the Conquering King. Here it says that every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. So, no future Hawaiian vacations will happen after the return of Christ, though I have some thoughts about that. No majestic purple mountains anymore. Anywhere. No more Mount Everest. There are reasons for that having to do with the Millennial Reign of Christ that is now imminently about to be set up that we will discuss when we get there, as the Lord leads.
These massive geophysical changes may simply be the initial groundwork of the Lord restoring the Earth to the way it once was. Is this a potential return to the supercontinent of Pangaea? I don’t know, maybe. I know the local geography around Jerusalem will undergo immediate changes when the Lord touches down on the Mount of Olives. It will split what is left of the city into two sections with a valley that runs from east to west through it. Through that valley, a stream will run that goes to both the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea (and the Galilean lake, though I am unclear if it will become one body of water). I know that at some point, fish will live in the Dead Sea, which at the moment is too salty to sustain life as we know it. This final bowl judgment will begin that set of changes, and it will be God, our Creator, making those changes for reasons all of His own that we can only speculate about, and I will not be doing that this evening. Moving on.

21: Hundred-pound, Three-foot Hailstones

If you’re wondering where I get the three-foot diameter, I did some math based on the average concentration of water in an average hailstone, so it is based on assumptions, but there are educated assumptions. And three feet is an approximation. They are about 30 inches in diameter based on the volume of the ice. When selling flooring to a customer, that math is usually close enough for planning. Also, I don’t think each hailstone is exactly 100 pounds. I think some will be bigger; this is likely an average size or a minimum size. In either case, this part will be devastating to anyone seeking shelter, as we will see.

21: And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, *came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague *was extremely severe.

Huge hailstones. The Greek is “χάλαζα μεγάλη.” For the record, hail is created by a process of chelation whereby atmospheric dust gathers water and then freezes as it passes through a zone of cold on the way to the ground. That’s pronounced “ka’-la-za.” And it may, in fact, be where we get our English word “chelation.” Hail itself is a chelate, as I mentioned. Then we have the word, μεγά again. BIG! As in HUGE. How big is that? Well, by comparison, the largest hailstone ever recorded was 8 inches in diameter, about the size of a volleyball, and weighed about 2 pounds. That’s enough information to do the math, by the way. The mass of the hailstone, as it relates to diameter, is a radius-cubed function (volume is what we are counting), and we would get 29.8 inches, or approximately 30 inches, for one weighing about 100 pounds. That’s just shy of 3 feet in diameter. Here’s the part you will need to remember: these hailstones will fall about 33,000 feet, more than enough time to reach what is known as terminal velocity, the fastest a given object can fall through our atmosphere. The Hailstone approximates a sphere, the most energy-efficient form and the easiest to fall through the air (note, raindrops are mostly spherical). Terminal velocity on one of these hailstones is 284 mph. Whenever they hit whatever they will hit, that’s enough force to do devastating damage. I tried to get AI to describe an impact like that, and it wouldn’t be very specific, but it did say that there would be a very high kinetic energy involved, a lot of energy at impact released as heat, and physical effects on whatever it hit. Most would likely land on the ground and dig sizable holes. It would wreck your car. It would kill you. It would destroy a 3-story building. I can’t even imagine what it would do to a skyscraper, but by this point, they probably all collapsed in the off-the-scale earthquake. Why am I giving a physics lesson? Partly because I’m a nerd, but also because I think it helps to visualize what could happen. By the way, not even John was specific on the weight; he said “about a hundred pounds each” in Greek.
This falling of the mega hailstones had another effect, rather than destroying anything that may have been left standing by the mega quake. It caused men to βλασφημέω [blaspheme]. Specifically, it made them blaspheme God because the plague was so severe. That word for “severe” is also μεγάλη, meaning great in size or impact, in this case literally. It was more than the men who were left could take. I think this is proof that they knew who was doing this, and they may have even figured out why, given how the angels and others reacted in the middle of the judgments, and if they haven’t, they are about to be informed.

The final judgment of the wrath of God is to crush all resistance and disobedience to His will as He proceeds to set up the throne of David on the Earth once again. That this does the two things at the same time seems almost serendipitous.

When I consider what has been going on in these final bowl judgments, as well as the old-fashioned terror of the Lord I get at these things, I am greatly encouraged. Personally, and I know I am not the only one here this evening who has had a rough life, where I was wronged by others who frankly should have known better. Nevertheless, I am in that category, and I still carry those scars, some visible, some not so much. Yet, Scripture is clear, I am not supposed to take revenge of any sort, even if, actually, especially if I feel like it. The Lord has reserved all such vengeance for Himself to take, and after reading these bowl judgments filled with His wrath, I must conclude that He is the best in the business. It also makes me repent of all the things I have done to make people feel that way, and I suspect there might be a few, maybe even some I do not remember, given my memory issues. I will try to make right what I have done to others, and where I cannot (and there are a couple of those these days as well), I will humbly ask the Lord Jesus to do what He can, because all things are possible with God.

The implications I see here are like this:

I need to make right what I can, and do so biblically.
I need to repent of that kind of action in my life.
I need to tell others who may ask about how I am doing this.
I need to forgive those who have done this kind of damage to me.

This is an essential lesson based on what will happen to the entire planet because of what we once did to the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords Himself, and one that ended for us in the forgiveness of Christ for us. Let us walk in that forgiveness, recognizing we did nothing to earn it, but that “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That’s what I saw in the text this evening.

Next time, we will look at chapter 17, verses 1 through 6, which we should be able to get through nicely in the time allotted.