Revelation 16:17-21 – The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” 18 Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20 Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21 From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.
“The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” The seventh angel poured the contents of his bowl into the air. The kingdom of the air is, in Ephesians 2:2, called the place where the devil’s kingdom is. Thus it is thought that the bowl poured into the air is signifying the judgement on the devils kingdom and those in it is hereby being judged. His door to his kingdom is slamming shut. This would include the devil, the demons and those on earth who have rejected Jesus.
Some think that this judgement, the subsequently revealed earthquake and huge hailstones point toward a nuclear explosion. When the United States tested the hydrogen bomb at the Marshall Islands on the Bikini Atoll, the blast was said to have caused water to rise high into the atmosphere, freeze and then come down as large hailstones onto the earth. Since the mountains of the earth are leveled and the islands disappear, and since this is a plague that affects the entire world, it may be likely that what is being described is much worse than a nuclear explosion.
“…and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” This is reminiscent of Revelation 14:15 whose voice is the voice of God. God is He who sits on the throne that is in the temple. So it is God whose voice is heard here loudly and clearly. The voice proclaims that “It is done” which of course reminds of when Jesus cried “It is finished.” It seems appropriate that when this final judgement is poured out that what is heard from the throne is almost exactly the last thing that Jesus said from the cross. These judgments that fall on the earth do not fall on the believers on earth at the time because the finished work of God has paid the full price for our sins and we are not children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-10). The wrath of God is upon those who refuse to believe and even in the last days refuse to repent. One of the last things Jesus said of those who had Him crucified is “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” However what is said of these in the last days, focusing in on those who took the mark of the beast, is that they refused to repent and glorify God (Revelation 16:9, 10). If one does not realize the wrong they have done then they would not think or know to repent. But to whom it is clear what they have done and are doing, they sin with knowledge and purpose. They know that they oppose God and they know they should repent but they have hardened their hearts and they will not repent. On these who have taken the mark of the beast, there is no repentance and no forgiveness. The have crossed the line of no return. For them, and for the devil and the demons who follow him “it is done!”
The term “it is done” stresses present effect on the past event. Perhaps all of sin and judgment, or perhaps because it is the final judgment to come during the great tribulation.
“Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake.” This is an earthquake that is judgment from God. The world has known many huge earthquakes that have devastated large areas and killed many. None of them come close to matching the earthquake that is being described here. This earthquake violently shook the entire earth. None before it had ever been close to the violent shaking that is being described here.
“The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed.” The earthquake split the great city into three parts and the cities of the nations collapsed. Not just the cities of the area, but cities around the world collapsed. Again if what is being described is a nuclear explosion, the bombs would have to be huge and many to even imagine the explosion shaking the whole world and leveling the cities around the entire world.
The great city is thought to mean Jerusalem.
“God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.” God has judged the great Babylon that polluted the earth with its filth and they have suffered pure judgment, pure consequences for the evil they did and for the evil the seduced the nations into.
“Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found.” How big is the earthquake? All the mountains in the world will be leveled and the islands of the world will disappear. This earthquake is so big it is hard, if not impossible to conceive the magnitude of it.
“From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people.” The original language denotes the weight of the hailstones at about a talent. A talent has been said to be the equivalent of somewhere between forty-five pounds to two hundred pounds (as a talent of gold). Commonly thought, this verse is describing one hundred pounds hailstones, as here translated.
“And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.” Still to the end, the inhabitants of the earth hate and curse God. Their hard hearts will not yield. They not only refuse to repent but they curse, they blaspheme God. Leviticus 24:16 states that the punishment for blaspheming God is to be stoned to death. These one hundred pound hailstones fall on these haters of God and kills and cripples them. They are being stoned by these hailstones that come from the judgment from the final bowl.
Certainly the rebellious and unyielding of God do not want to hear the truth of what the book of Revelation is prophesying is coming. I’m sure it makes them angry. But to us who are redeemed through Jesus we see the answer to our prayers arriving “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” Family lift up our heads, see what is coming and give glory to God because the end to our struggle is coming (Luke 21:28). Jesus will be bringing us home. It is the culmination of our hope and faith in God. Praise God! Jesus is alive and He is returning. Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.