A GREAT BIG GOD
Opening Prayer
God, so great and mighty, thank You for hearing me.
Read Revelation 15
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Seven Angels With Seven Plagues
15 I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. 2 And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God 3 and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:
“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations.[a]
4 Who will not fear you, Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”[b]
5 After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple—that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law—and it was opened. 6 Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. 7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever. 8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.
Footnotes
a Revelation 15:3 Some manuscripts ages
b Revelation 15:4 Phrases in this song are drawn from Psalm 111:2,3; Deut. 32:4; Jer. 10:7; Psalms 86:9; 98:2.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Reflect for a few moments on the glories of the infinite Lord and the dangers of fashioning a merely domestic god.The completeness of God’s judgment here is described in both Old and New Testament language—the tablets of the law of Moses in the holy of holies and the rejection of the Lamb. Seven holy angels and seven bowls are the numerical expression of that completeness. So nowhere is exempt.
No one gets through the impenetrable, burning holiness of God and into the Temple until judgment is spent (8). Our Lord is King of all nations; all people will come and bow before him.
If I reduce the Lord of all the earth to my own domestic deity, God in my pocket rather than God on the throne, what do I lose? I lose a God to tell my neighbor about. I lose a God who is concerned to save—from his own wrath—the people of this world. I lose a God who sees and judges all sin.
I lose the yearning to see God receive worship from all he has made. I lose an awesome God to serve and am left only with a little god who serves me. And thus I lose my own true glory, my stature as a child of this god. But God is great in glory and power!
Apply
Is your view of God too small? Go over what you know of him. Does it line up with how you treat God? If needed, repent and begin to allow God to retrain your mind to see God for who he truly is.
Closing prayer
Lord, help me to see You for how great You truly are, so that I might long for You to be glorified in all the earth.
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