Revelation 16:1
Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.”
Vicki was just talking about dialing someone to talk to them on the phone. We quickly realized that her high school students would have no earthly clue what that meant because rotary dial phones are so 1970’s. Here is a similar situation in the churches around Ephesus with one clear difference. John heard the voice of God coming from the temple, the symbol of his presence among the Jews. The Jewish Christians would immediately recall the law and the sacrifices, that the blood of animals was poured out. The Gentile Christians would need explanation. Praise the Lord that the Bible tells them, and us, about the history of God’s plan! They would get plugged in, grafted in, to the meaning of the pouring out of the seven bowls of wrath, even if they didn’t know when it would occur.
Come to Cape Community Church tomorrow and you will see that it is the same with us. Without the Bible, the above verse would be like reading someone else’s mail with a letter about rotary dial phones. We would have no earthly clue. But, because of the heavenly clues God gave us in Scripture, we can connect the future wrath of God to the payment for sins in the Old Testament, which leads to the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ, who had the Father’s wrath poured out on him for us. Praise the Lord that we can “dial up” the Scriptures!
O Heavenly Father, you have made your plan known and revealed it to little children. Thank you for using language to tell us of your plan. In Jesus’ name. Amen.