The Great Day of God’s Wrath – Revelation 6
‘For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?’ — Revelation 6:17
As people who live in a day of grace when God is graciously extending His salvation to all who believe on Christ and when God is patiently waiting and wanting all to come to repentance, we can get the idea that God will not judge.
But Revelation dispels that myth. There is coming a time in the hereafter (4:1), when the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, will unloose seals on the scroll of God’s end-time program. These seals (and trumpets and bowls) will unloose a time of judgment and wrath on the world, unlike anything it has ever seen before.
There will be conquering (v.2), war (v.3-4), famine (v.5-6), and death of 25% of the world population (v.7-8). During this end time period, many saints will be martyred (v.9-11). There will be an earthquake that will shake and move mountains and islands out of their places (v.12-14). The heavens will be radically changes, and everyone on earth from the greatest to the least will want to die because the wrath of God will be so terrible (v.15-17).
The chapter closes with the question who shall be able to stand? The answer is those who have believed on Christ will escape this day of wrath.
- 1 Thessalonians 1:10 says that Jesus delivers ‘from the wrath to come’.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:9 says, ‘God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ’.
- In Revelation 3:10, Christ promises, ‘I will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth’.
Christ is coming to take His church out of this world in the rapture before the wrath of God is poured out. We look forward to Him coming as the Blessed Hope. We know that we will go through trials and tribulation, but not the Great Tribulation, the hour of temptation, and the wrath to come!
If you have not believed on Christ, believe today so that you too have the promise that Jesus will deliver you from the wrath to come.