Revelation 16:8-9
8 Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. 9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.
The first bowl judgment was sores. God will give people the chance to repent and come back to Him. But they will refuse. This is similar to what happened during the time of Moses and Pharaoh in Egypt. Pharaoh should have humbled himself before God and listened to Him, but he was arrogant.
We need to obey God before He chastises us. Exodus 11:5 talks about the tenth disaster that God brought upon Egypt. God warned them and brought judgments, but Pharaoh refused to take heed. In this judgment, Pharaoh lost his firstborn.
When God tells you to do something, even if it doesn’t make sense, you need to obey Him quickly.
If we repent when God warns us, He will not bring the judgment to our lives. We can see one example of this in the book of Jonah. God was going to bring great judgment because of the sin in Nineveh, but He wanted to give them a chance to hear the truth, to repent. God sent Jonah to preach to Nineveh.
When they heard Jonah’s message, the king declared a time of fasting and repentance. When God saw this, He relented from the disaster than He was planning to bring. (Jonah 3:4-10)
God told Jonah to preach the gospel to Nineveh, but he didn’t want to because he wanted God to destroy them. Nineveh was Israel’s enemy, so Jonah wanted them to be destroyed. When God told him to preach to Nineveh, he went the other direction. He ran away, so God allowed him to be swallowed by a fish. For three days, he was inside the fish and there he repented and promised God that if He spared his life that he would obey Him.
God doesn’t want you to hate your enemy. He tells us to take care of our enemies, to turn the other cheek. God will take care of your enemies for you. He doesn’t want you to take revenge.
God wants people to repent. When they do, He will give them a second chance. When you take heed to the warning of God, He will give you a second chance. God wants to save America. He wants to give America another chance. He will bring judgment because of our sin, but if we repent, then He will relent and give us a second chance. That is the kind of God we serve.
God bless you!
Pastor Sun Hui East