‘Day 287

“Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.” And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since mankind came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nation’s fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath.” Revelation 16:17-19. (NASB)

A raging God doesn’t always sit well with people today. But one thing we have to keep in mind is that Revelation was written primarily to people who were suffering as they heard the book. In a time of ease language like this can seem inappropriate, but in desperate times the thought of a mighty avenger can seem almost sweet to the abused and the downtrodden.

But more than this, God uses this kind of language as a motivator in some circumstances. God knows that we often want to do the right thing, but we need some sort of motivation to pull it off. The sense of negative consequences can go a long way toward changing our behaviour. 
Here’s an old motivation story but a goodie: It seems that a number of the girls at a school thought it was great fun to coat their lips with lipstick and then plant a big kiss on the mirror in the girl’s bathroom. The appearance of all the lip marks seemed too hilarious for words. This, however, increased the cleaner’s workload greatly as the oil-based substance was quite difficult to remove.

So the principal made it a rule. No kissing of mirrors in the girl’s bathroom was allowed. Did this motivate the practice to stop? Of course not! Now there was not only the fun of smudging the mirror, there was the thrill of breaking a rule! So the marks increased. A fine didn’t work either. 
He finally came up with an idea. He cleared the girl’s bathroom one day and called in ten of the most talkative girls for a demonstration. He would show them how hard it was to clean the mirror of all the lip smudges. So with the girls looking on, he called on the cleaner to clean the mirror in front of them. The cleaner dipped a sponge in the toilet and began to wipe the mirror! Needless to say, within two or three days the kissing of mirrors had stopped in that school!