Scripture Reading: Revelation 6:9-17
In this passage, the fifth and sixth seal of the great scroll are opened, and the unleased suffering on the earth continues. The fifth seal reveals that, during this time there will be an extensive martyrdom of Christians. In this heavenly scene these martyrs are praying for God's justice to be brought, in full, on His enemies.
The sixth seal releases both cosmic and natural disasters. The inhabitants of the earth, great and small, begin to realize that the horrendous troubles, relentlessly being experienced by everyone, are actually divine in origin. Rather than turn to God for mercy, they simply pray for death … blindly imagining that death is an escape from God's judgment.
The wrath of God is on full display in this passage, and in the passages to come in Revelation. God's anger is His holy and controlled response against sin and against those who persist in opposing Him. His wrath rises out of His holiness and justice and, therefore, is not simply emotional, but fundamentally judicial. One definition of divine wrath is: God's holy reaction to sin and His resolve to bring judgment on those who rebel against Him.
The more we understand the wrath of God and, given that we deserve it, the deeper our wonder of the mercy of God in Christ and the greater our gratitude to God and our love for Him.
