John 17:20-26, Revelation 9, Job 33:12-33, Obadiah 1-21

Revelation 9:

We come now to further calamities that come upon the earth because of the sinfulness and rebellion of people. In this chapter, there is first the fifth angel and his trumpet (v.1-12), then the sixth angel and his trumpet (v.13-21). Note that the judgment of God comes upon those who rebel against him. This painful calamity is limited in scope (v.4) and time (v.10), yet terrible in consequence (v.6 and v.18).

Yet, despite all this calamity, suffering, pain, and judgment, people do not return to God in repentance and faith. The end of this chapter makes startling reading:

20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Interpreters differ as to the meaning of some of these symbols, these plagues that echo the plagues of Egypt now in much greater and fiercer scope, but all together we can see the terrible nature of these plagues, the fierce pain that they bring – and yet the hardness of heart of people who still do not repent.

Truly, chapters like this should cause us to fear God, to turn to him in faith, to pray that our trust in him would be sustained even in the midst of the most difficult of circumstances, and to ask that God in his wrath remember mercy. Above all to pray for and promote in all biblical ways the proclamation of the gospel through which alone we must escape the wrath that is to come.