Read Revelation 15.
Verse 1 of today’s chapter celebrates the end of God’s wrath but, before it is completed, there are seven bowls of wrath that will be poured out on earth in the form of plagues. The end is in sight but many horrors would come before the end did.
In verses 3-4, however, the believers who “had been been victorious over the beast” (v. 2b) sang stanzas from Old Testament songs. Why? To remind us and all the world that these expressions of God’s judgment are not acts of cruelty inflicted on innocent people. Instead, “just and true are your ways, King of the nations” (v. 3b). The painful, destructive acts of God are the just payment for disobedience against him.
We need to be reminded of this again and again. When we recoil from the destruction described in these chapters, it is because we are too familiar with sin and too used to excusing it in ourselves and others. While compassion for sinners is always a godly characteristic, so also is a firm commitment to the holiness and justice of God. God’s judgment, then, is something to rejoice over—not because of the pain it brings people but because it points to God’s glory and calls everyone to worship him.