Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10032 The book of Revelation describes a sequence of divine judgements poured out upon the earth during the seven-year Tribulation period. The seal judgements, opened by the Lamb in Revelation 6, form the opening wave of this programme of wrath and set the stage for the intensifying trumpet and bowl judgements that follow. Understanding…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10034 The bowl judgements of Revelation 16 are the final and most severe wave of divine wrath during the Tribulation. Sometimes called the vial judgements after the older English rendering of the Greek phiale (a broad, shallow bowl used for pouring), they are described as completing God’s wrath (Revelation 15:1). There is no further…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10089 The wrath of God during the Tribulation is one of the most sobering subjects in all of Scripture. It is not a tangential theme or an incidental feature of the end times; it is the defining characteristic of the entire seven-year period. Understanding what that wrath looks like, why it falls, and on…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10088 The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are among the most vivid and widely recognised images in all of Scripture. They appear in Revelation 6:1-8 as the Lamb opens the first four seals of the scroll, and their appearance marks the beginning of the Tribulation judgements that will fall upon the earth. Understanding who…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10087 The phrase “one will be taken and one left” in Matthew 24:40-41 is among the most frequently cited verses in popular Rapture teaching. It appears on bumper stickers, in film dramatisations, and in countless sermon illustrations. But does the passage actually describe the Rapture? A careful reading of the context reveals something rather…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10033 The trumpet judgements of Revelation 8-9 and 11 represent the second and more intense wave of divine judgement during the Tribulation period. Proceeding from the seventh seal, they escalate the devastation significantly, moving from the partial destruction of the seal judgements to catastrophic ecological and supernatural interventions that leave no doubt about the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10096 The names Gog and Magog appear in two very different contexts in Scripture: the prophecy of Ezekiel 38-39 and the brief but dramatic reference in Revelation 20:8. Whether these refer to the same event, the same entities, or something else entirely has been debated by careful interpreters for centuries. The question deserves a…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10095 The Millennium is not the final chapter in God’s redemptive story. A thousand years of Christ’s righteous rule on earth, remarkable as that period will be, gives way to a concluding series of events that brings the present created order to its end and ushers in the eternal state. What happens at the…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10122 Tartarus is the rarest of the New Testament terms for a place of punishment, occurring only once in the entire Bible, in 2 Peter 2:4. It is a word drawn from Greek mythology, and its single New Testament appearance has generated considerable discussion about who is held there, why they are there, and…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10120 Hades is one of the most frequently misunderstood terms in the New Testament, largely because English readers associate it automatically with the Greek mythology from which the word originates. But the New Testament writers did not adopt Greek mythology when they used the term. They used the Greek word to express the Hebrew…