Transcript

ANNOUNCER: The seven bowl judgments of the Great Tribulation in Revelation. We will begin to talk about those today, and we are delighted that you are joining us right here on Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society, located in North Texas. Our website is faithalone.org. We’d love you to log on and learn more about us, especially our tuition-free online seminary, and our subscription-free magazine. It is also called Grace in Focus, and it is free except if you live outside of the contiguous 48 United States, you do have to pay the postage. If you like the things we talk about on this program, you will enjoy it a lot. So get signed up for it today at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Philippe Sterling.

BOB: Well, Philippe, we’ve come to the bowl judgments. We go from the seven seal judgments, the seven trumpet judgments, to the seven bowl judgments. So now we’re on the bowl judgments, and I wonder if you could introduce these bowl judgments. They’re found in what, Revelation 15 and 16? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, Revelation 15 and 16 are devoted to the seven bowl judgments, and some of the aftermath of that. But we’re told that the seventh trumpet sounds after the death, resurrection, and ascension of the two witnesses, and the seventh trumpet sounds, and we’re told that the temple of God is opened up in the heavens and the holy of holies. And as a result, when we come to chapter 15, we’re told that the seven angels come out of that holding seven bowls, which are the seven bowls of the wrath of God, and that with those seven bowls, the wrath of God will be finished. The pouring out of the seventh bowl will be the culmination of all of God’s temporal judgments upon the earth dwellers. 

BOB: So let me see if I understand this. Although it’s seven years divided by three and a half and three and a half, obviously if you’ve got seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls, they’re not going to break exactly evenly. And what’s actually happening if I’m following this is the seals and the trumpets all are in the first half, and the bowl judgments are all in the second half. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, they may occur throughout the second half, or throughout the latter period of the second half, we’re not given the strict chronology. 

BOB: We don’t know exactly if the bowl judgments start when the two witnesses ascend to heaven or not, but we do know it sometime after that. Okay, so with these seven bowl judgments, each one affects something different, kind of like the ten plagues of Egypt, right? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, they involve natural judgments using the hail, thunder, and lightning, the sun, and afflicting sores, much like also occurred with the ten plagues. 

BOB: Okay, now we’ve come up with some memorable ways of remembering these seven bowl judgments, and hopefully if you’re teaching a Sunday school class on this, you too can use these bowls. Now, the first bowl, we call the derma bowl, and we call it the derma bowl because it’s the skin bowl. It’s the dermatology bowl. It’s the bowl that relates to the sores like the sores that Job had that were horrible, and these will be very bad skin infections, right? 

PHILIPPE: Oh, yeah, they will be horrid, it to set the words with pus pouring out of them and all of that. But we know that Satan afflicted Job with that, and we do know that one of the plagues upon Pharoah and upon the Egyptians was also the matter of these types of sores as well. And this is the very first bowl judgment. It’s poured out and becomes sores upon all the earth dwellers. The ones that took on the mark of the beast.

BOB: And that’s what, 16:2, I think? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, that would be verse two, chapter 16, would you like me to read that? Again, the seven angels who are commanded to go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth. “So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image.”

BOB: So like with the 10 plagues, where when these 10 plagues fell, they did not fall upon the Jewish people. They fell upon the Egyptians.  Here, these 10 plagues, I mean, these seven, well, at least these first of the seven is not going to fall upon—

PHILIPPE: Believers are spared. 

BOB: The believers, it’s going to fall upon those who’ve taken the mark of the beast. Now there will be some unbelievers who haven’t taken the mark of the beast, and they won’t get this either. 

PHILIPPE: That will be, I think, an inference that we can make there, because it specifies it’s those who worship the image that was set up there in the tribulation temple, and upon those who had the mark of the beast. 

BOB: Okay, so the first bowl judgment is the dermal bowl. Now the second bowl judgment, we call it the Alabama bowl, or we could call it the Alabama sea bowl, because Alabama is called the Crimson Tide. So the crimson tide would be the red sea. And in fact, I grew up in Southern California, and we occasionally would get this red tide that would come in. It would come in because of some of the, I guess, 

PHILIPPE: Some of the organisms, the micro-organisms, that turned the water red. 

BOB: But in this case, the water is going to be turned red because of blood, is that right? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, this would be verse three, the second bowl, “Then the second angel pulled out his bowl on the sea,” and that, I think, will be probably all the oceans of the world, “and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.” Now there was a trumpet judgment that also affected the seas of the world that involved blood, but there we qwew told that only one third organisms of the sea died, but here we’re told that every living creature in the sea died, so the crimson tide takes over all of the oceans of the world. 

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BOB: And then the third one, we might call the Alabama Bowl Part II, or we might call it the Alabama River Bowl, because on this one, we’re now dealing with freshwater, right? PHILIPPE: Yes, all the rivers and fountains, all the springs, all the inland water, basically, turns to blood. 

BOB: This third one does parallel what happened with the Nile in the ten plagues. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, that was the first of the plagues upon Egypt, with touching with the rod, and the Nile turned to blood, and all the fish died. So here this occurs on all of the inland waterways, as part of God’s judgment on the earth dwellers, and there we’re told “The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.” 

BOB: Okay, so we’ve got the derma bowl, the Alabama Bowl Part I, or the Alabama Sea Bowl, then we get the Alabama River Bowl, and then we get what we call the Sun Bowl, and there actually is a football game, I think, called the Sun Bowl, but in any regard, the Sun Bowl, the Sun is a beautiful thing as long as we’re not getting a lot of solar flares, but these are going to be ginormous solar flares, right? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, I mean, read what it says: “Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat.” So the scorching Sun. Now, of course, here in Texas, we have some good experience with the scorching Sun during the height of the summer, but this would be 10 times worse. 

BOB: Oh, I remember I was in Perth, Australia about 20 years ago, and they told me to always wear a hat when I was outside, because there was evidently some hole in the ozone layer, and it meant you could burn much easier than if you were in other parts, and the same thing is true, I think if you’re on the equator, you can burn much easier than if you’re in California where I grew up or here in Texas where I live now, but in any case, this scorching Sun is not going to be a laughing matter. This is going to be a very serious judgment on all of the unbelieving world. 

PHILIPPE: And the note that is made with this judgment is that the people of the earth that were subjected to that blaspheme God. 

BOB: So they’re basically cursing it. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, they’re cursing. They’re shaking their fist in rage against God. 

BOB: But they do recognize these things are coming from Him. 

PHILIPPE: Now they acknowledge that this is the wrath of God. 

BOB: Now this one doesn’t say it’s only for those who’ve taken the mark. So do you think this applies to everyone? In other words, all unbelievers would get this, and in fact, believers would experience this judgment as well? 

PHILIPPE: Again, we’re not told here specifically, but I will infer that all of these culminating, wrathful judgments that believers are spared in some ways, partially at least, protected in some ways. And they don’t blaspheme, but the unbeliever world does. 

BOB: Okay. Now the opposite of the sun bowl is the dark bowl because there’s a bowl that’s coming and you can imagine this bowl that’s just pure black and it’s this dark bowl. And you remember, that’s one of the ten plagues. Well, the darkness was so much people were gnawing their tongues, right? 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, because it was painful, so oppressive that it was painful, but there again, though in Goshen, they had light. 

BOB: Right. And by the way, that shows that God is able to produce light anytime he wants. Remember the New Jerusalem is going to be lit up by the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the first three days of creation, there was light before the Sun. Because God’s able to do that, he can turn on the light anytime he wants. But let’s end with this one for today. So in terms of the dark bowl, what happens? Darkness descends?

PHILIPPE: Yeah, “The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain.” And again, “They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores and they did not repent of their deeds.” 

BOB: Yeah, it’s just the opposite of what they should be doing. Instead of blaspheming God, they should be crying out and saying, please spare us, we were wrong. We’re so sorry. 

PHILIPPE: Much like the people of Nineveh at the preaching of Jonah. 

BOB: They should be repenting. But instead, they’re not. In fact, Revelation 6 and Revelation 19 both indicate that they didn’t repent as these judgments were occurring. All right. So we’ve been through five bowls. The derma bowl, the Alabama sea bowl, the Alabama river bowl, the sun bowl, and the dark bowl. We’ve still got two bowls yet to come. So in part two of the bowl judgments, we’ll look at the final two bowls. In the meantime, let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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And on our next episode, we continue talking about the seven bowl judgments. Please join us. And in the meantime, let’s all keep grace in focus.