The bowls of wrath (Ch. 15-16)

Chapter 15-16

The bowls

The harvests have shown that the nations can spend either in eternity without God or with him. How will God react on this. What will he do?

These are stated as the final actions. God is addressing the important topics in these bowls. They are:

• Bowl 1: They gave allegiance to Satan
• Bowl 2-3: They killed his witnesses (us)! They did not want to listen
• Bowl 4-5: They hardened their hearts
• Bowl 6: Therefore God will give them that they go all the way to full alliance with Satan
• Bowl 7: And God destroys Satans kingdom one and forever.

This wraps us quickly what God is going to do. The scenary here describes that God will do this to the end, until nobody wants to change anymore.

Armageddon

There is one very interesting topic: Armageddon. This is mentioned only once and it seems not be clear what this is about.

The word Armageddon has three translations:

• Mountain of slaughter -> this will be an epic battle
• Mountain of assembly -> A reference to Satan who want to be like God but it lowered to nothing
• Mountain of Megiddo -> The place where several battles happen with untypical heros
  • a housewife named Jael overcoming an army leader
  • the depressive prophet saves a nation - Karmel is the mountain near Megiddo
  • a single man overthrows the ruler of two countries on the same day
  • a king goes into battle, looses the battle and dies, but changes history

One thing is clear: The battle happens not in Armageddon as mountains are the places where the armies assemble as also show here.

The battle is described later. In the short form in the seventh bowl, but in detail (after the destiny of the harlot and the wedding of the bride is described), when Jesus comes as the white rider.

He also assembles “his army” in a very ironic way. The army are the vultures that will feast from the slayed army. So his concern is not that he might not win, but how to clean up afterwards.