Revelation 11:18 Commentary and Bible Study

There is a contrast here between the anger of the nations and the wrath of the Lord. When we think of the great wickedness of the world and the long time that God has put up with it; when we think of unbelievers have done to the saints, we are not surprised that God is angry. It is the accumulation of his wrath throughout the entire history of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of every New Testament martyr. Time will not have made him forget any of the hatefulness of sin. But why are the nations angry? Do they have a good reason? We associate mass anger with a just cause, but how can those who oppose God have a just cause? Can so many be united in agreement, falsely? The answer is yes. ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing’ (Psalm 2:1)? They rage, and yet their rage is vanity. They resent the commandments of God. They are angry that God tells them that they are sinners. This is of course nothing new. The Pharisees were angry with Christ when he proved them guilty of sin. Christ said, ‘they hated me without cause’ (John 15:25). But all their anger is a delusion, an act of self-deceit. The anger of the nations will be met with God’s wrath, and it will not stand. God will overcome them with the greatest of ease. He will bring their guilt to light and arouse their own consciences however deeply buried under sin. Their righteousness will turn to sin and their anger turn to fear. A number of great end-time events are put together here which some try to separate. The resurrection of the dead includes the resurrection of the righteous and of the wicked. Following this, two classes of people are mentioned, the servants of the Lord who will be rewarded and those who have destroyed the earth. All these things take place at the same time. How have the wicked destroyed the earth? Is it the earth’s natural resources that the Lord is concerned about? Although the Christian must be a good steward of the world that God has given him, this is not the most important thing and it is not what is in mind here. What corrupts the earth as far as God is concerned is not carbon dioxide but sin. It is this that has wrecked the world. The physical world is in ruin not primarily because of unsound ecological practices, but because God has cursed it on account of human sin.