A healthy planet relates to healthy hearts
Can we not see how far reaching the effects of sin are? Rebellion is a cancer. A healthy planet comes from healthy hearts–spiritually healthy hearts. Decisions made in our private moments effect the phytoplankton that feed the whales. Moses recorded God’s word to man when God opened the door to our independence. Eat that fruit and you will die. In Revelation it culminates. Revelation is the Omega of our sin. Dying oceans are but one element.
Does creation groan? The Bible says that creations groans. Dying reefs and turtles, dying dolphins and dying whales…they groan and we groan at it all.
The third bowl: Destruction of fresh water resources
4 The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. (Revelation 16:4–ESV)
The oceans are but the beginning and the third step moves beyond the salt-water habitats of our planet to the fresh water resources. Water is a resource that none can long live without. We need it for the most basic things in life. My son went to college a month ago and he has a beautiful habanero pepper plant growing in a pot on our deck. Well, it wilts, and periodically I go out to water it. All earth life is in great need of being “watered” so to speak.
Just as Revelation 8 spoke of partial oceanic destruction and Revelation 16 total oceanic destruction so goes fresh water resources. Those inland from the bodies of water on our planet are not isolated from destruction. Hurricanes don’t reach too far inland, but the bowls of wrath do.
By this point we have people sick, the oceans dead and with it the atmosphere sick, now with bowl three fresh water trips, falls and is destroyed. Sewage cannot be treated, water will not be available from the rivers and ponds, springs and streams. I don’t know if the water table is so destroyed. Perhaps wells still provide fresh water, or do for a time. Could it be that the bloodied water is not immediately deadly?
Some mornings in Augusta, Georgia when the night breezes have not blown the downtown area can be filled with a terrible smell. I have even heard the label “disgusta” applied to the scene. By the third bowl of wrath the world will be caught by terrible smells. It won’t be blamed on paper mills or meat processing plants. It won’t be a thing to get away from. The global environment will be marked by it.
lulrich says
In class we use the NIV version and in that version verse 9 says “…but they refused to repent and glorify him.” One class member raised a question about this phrase. If these people are all those who have taken the mark of the beast defying God and discarding the warning of the missionary angel that went about the earth in chapter 14 then why does this verse say they refused to repent. That implies that the choice was still available to them. The Bibles that have Strong’s numbers attached to the words (NASB, KJV, and Holman Christian Standard Bible) do not include a word for refused. The original languages did not imply a choice was available. The phrase before what I mentioned here says that the people cursed or blasphemed God. The lack of repentance and lack of God glorifying is not meant to speak of an optional response for these people, but to emphasize the thorough rejection of God on the part of these people.