The First Four Plagues

The First Four Plagues
Revelation 16.1-9

I was cycling down the road one day when I came up beside my former tutor. I had studied the New Testament with him some years before, and was now engaged on some early work towards my doctorate.

‘How are you getting on?’ he asked. ‘How’s it going?’

At that stage I was up to my neck in Romans 1.18—3.20. Readers of Paul will know that this passage is mostly about God’s wrath against all human wickedness – in other words, against all of us.

‘Actually,’ I confessed, ‘I’m having a hard time with wrath.’ ‘Aren’t we all!’ he replied cheerfully, and cycled off...