Revelation 16:17-21

Revelation 16:17: “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.”

Here we see the last of the vial (or bowl) judgment. As before, we see that it results in “voices, and thunders, and lightnings” and an earthquake. This time, however, the earthquake is particularly severe: in fact, it is said to be the worst earthquake that has ever happened. This earthquake will level “the cities of the nations”, and it will cause Jerusalem to be divided into three parts. On top of that, it will also make the islands vanish and will level the mountains.

Just think of how terrible this will be! God has already struck men with boils, He has turned the Earth’s water supply into blood, and He has turned up the heat of the Sun. Now God levels the world’s cities, destroys the world’s islands, and flattens the world’s mountains. This is destruction on a scale that the world has never seen. This is truly an apocalyptic judgment.

As if all of that was not bad enough, God also sends a terrible hailstorm that is so great that each hailstone weighed about 70 pounds. This would be particularly devastating. Anything that survived the earthquake (and the earthquake will surely kill millions, if not hundreds of millions) would almost certainly be killed by the hail.

I have no idea how many people will die as a result of this catastrophic earthquake (which will level cities all over the world!), or as a result of the hail, but I have a feeling the death toll will be very high.