Revelation 15 and 16. We come to the end, sort of. The cycles of judgment are culminating in these final judgments, but ahead is still the description of the world systems falling apart and the marriage supper of the Lamb. But here are presented the final judgments in the 7 bowls of God’s wrath. And as we look to the reading of God’s word, if you please join with me in prayer.
Heavenly Father, as we now come into your presence Through your word, we ask that you would open our ears to hear your voice, to open our hearts to love you more and more, to open our souls to receive your word in its fullness, that your Son Jesus, the Word made flesh, would be glorified and honored in our lives. For it is in his name that we do pray. Amen. Chapter 15, beginning in verse 1. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing.
7 angels with 7 plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire, and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, the song of the Lamb, saying, great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! After this, I looked, and the sanctuary, the tent of witness in heaven, was opened.
And out of the sanctuary came the 7 angels with the 7 plagues, clothed in pure bright linen with golden sashes around their chest. And one of the 4 living creatures gave to the 7 angels 7 golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. And the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the 7 plagues of the 7 angels were finished. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the 7 angels, ‘Go and pour out on the earth the 7 bowls of the wrath of God.’ The word of the Lord.
Throughout Revelation, John has repeated sets of 7 for us. We have had 7 golden lampstands, 7 churches, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 bowls. And as I said from the start, I don’t think that it helps us to see this as sort of a straightforward chronology, like this happens, then this happens next, and after this, this happens, sort of 4, 5, 6, like that. Rather, John presents us with a series of cycles. The same events are happening, but we’re shown this from different perspectives, different angles.
Cycles and not chronology. If you think about how great battle scenes are depicted, you take something like D-Day during World War II, uh, the camera, as it were, would move from one place to another. Everything is happening at the same time, but you can only focus on just one thing. There are lots of moving parts from the Navy to the Air Force, to the Marines, to the Army, to the, the different opposing sides. Yet your focus can only be on one of those things.
In order to describe it before you move on to the next. And I think that’s how this symbolic vision of Revelations are presented as well, that we see these events are given from the time of Christ’s resurrection all the way to his return, what we refer to as the age of the church or the church age. And these simultaneous events now intensify at the very end. Last week we addressed the problem that many have of eternal punishment, and we’re not gonna deal with that today. But what we see here before us is both the glory and the wrath of God.
Like eternal punishment, the idea of God’s wrath is a stumbling block for many. That God would be upset with anyone for their behavior is upsetting to them. But because the patience and the kindness of the Lord, it leads us to repentance. We must not think that this is indefinite. A time is coming when he will set all crooked things straight and he will bring about his judgments to their conclusion.
And here we are in the midst of all of these great promises that we’ve been told, even while we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. Those that John is writing to, they’re in this same spot. They’re experiencing persecution, the loss of property, the loss of many things including their life, imprisonment. And the promises of the Lord seem really far off. And they— and we— are reminded that our protection is a spiritual one and a final one.
Jesus has firmly warned us ahead of time. He said if you follow him It will not necessarily be easy for you in this life. If they persecuted him, they will persecute you. If you are expecting heaven on earth, you have the wrong expectation. But Revelation gives us a perspective from heaven’s side.
And here before us, we see both the glory of God celebrated by his people, even as we see the wrath of God on those who refuse him. Well, his glory brought out first here in chapter 15. I saw another sign in heaven. Great and amazing, 7 angels of 7 plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. And when you see the plagues, of course, you should be instantly reminded of the Exodus and God’s great deliverance of his people from the slavery of Egypt through the 10 plagues.
These Old Testament symbols of judgment are used throughout Revelation, and we see them here too, a final set. And along with that, also those who have conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name. So here in heaven’s perspective is the saints who are now in glory. And what do they do? They sing.
They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. The, the song of Moses is a song of deliverance that Israel sang in Exodus 15 after the, the crossing of the Red Sea, and Pharaoh’s army is destroyed. Israel’s at last free and they sing of God’s salvation. And John ties the Exodus with the final and complete work of Jesus. Jesus is the greater Moses who frees us from sin and death.
What the Exodus points to is totally and finally fulfilled in the personal work of Jesus Christ. Fear, oh Lord, and glorify your name, for you alone are holy. All the nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. There’s a great joy and celebration for those who have endured. Remember back to, to chapter 6, for those who had suffered for their faith in Christ, they were calling out, how long, oh Lord, before you judge and avenge our blood?
And what is their comfort? They were told there, rest a little while until the number of the fellow servants your brothers should be complete. The purpose of God’s delay is that the total number of those being saved has not yet been reached. In God’s merciful delay, he is opening blind eyes to the glory and the majesty of Jesus, his Son. And now John sees the end has come.
The final judgment has arrived. It said the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. No one could enter the sanctuary until the 7 plagues of the 7 angels were finished. There’s a holiness and a glory to God that we mostly do not comprehend. Surely at times we have a greater sense of this, but that too is largely veiled from us.
But make no mistake, it is there. When God’s people in the Bible at times are shown just glimpses of it, they are undone. They, they fall on their face or As Isaiah did in the throne room, he cried out, woe is me, I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.
He’s in the presence of God and he is undone. That’s the glory of God that we long for and will fully encounter in that day. But until then. Until then, it is still veiled somewhat, even as the glory and the majesty of Jesus was veiled. Only at times did his disciples see but glimpses of it.
And from this glory comes his wrath. In the beginning of chapter 16, then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of God’s wrath. John’s vision is adapting typical symbols of divine judgment drawn from both biblical history as well as natural history. It describes the doom that overtakes unbelieving mankind. And we see this, of course, throughout history.
Here it’s concentrated in a final catastrophic end. The bulls and the trumpets that we saw earlier are, are parallel. They’re not necessarily one-to-one, but they’re, they’re certainly similar. If you read those in succession, you see they’re almost straight across. As I said before, what we see is cycles, cycles of judgment that culminate with a greater intensity.
Well, what does that mean? It means throughout history we see these kinds of judgments rain in on humanity. Revelation presents us with a symbolic overview of this history. It’s not simply a book that only makes sense at the very end. It makes sense for all of God’s people in history.
We live pieces and parts of this throughout our lives, in greater or lesser degrees, in different times and in different places. Well, what do we see with the bowls? Like the trumpets, the first 4 afflict the earth, the sea, the rivers, and the sun. All areas of creation are affected. And then we read in verse 5, the angel there says, just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments.
For they have shed the blood of saints and the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve. And I heard the altar, that’s where the voices of God’s martyrs are, saying, yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments. Now, some are bothered by the idea of celebrating in judgment. After all, the Bible does tell us in Proverbs 24, do not rejoice when your enemy falls.
Do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest God see it and be displeased and turn away his anger from him.
But that’s not what’s taking place here. These saints are not gloating. They are celebrating God’s final and perfect justice. I, I recently was in a courtroom where the guilty verdict was delivered and there was a palpable feeling of relief and a release of emotions at a just verdict by those who had been receiving such wrong from this person. It wasn’t a gloating, but a gratitude in the Lord’s vindication.
We do celebrate in that final victory of the Lamb over all those who refuse to bow the knee to his grace and his mercy. And John’s images are broad brushstrokes shown of what it looks like for rebellious people to continue to live defiantly before their Creator. These judgments, they come in many shapes and sizes. So often with the Lord, our punishment is usually the consequences of our own sin. Natural disasters and war, they’re certainly a part of this, but so many are man-made disasters.
Think about it. In our constant greed and pursuit of consumption, we are all dealing with forever plastics in our food and water. Diseases have come from our own foolishness and our own sinfulness. Think of all the many sexually transmitted diseases which would simply be wiped out with monogamy. How many children are affected by them and many other things through their parents.
And we see this all through history. And what we get here is this intensification at the end.
In verses 8 to 11, the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun and is allowed to scorch people with fire. And even those who are scorched, it said, they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. And then the next angel, the fifth angel, poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. Its kingdom was plunged into darkness.
And we see they cursed the God of heaven for their pain and their sores. They did not repent of their deeds. You notice pattern here is very similar to the one of Pharaoh and the plagues of Egypt. His heart was hardened against the Lord rather than turning towards him. People are resolute in their sin and in their corruption.
A couple things to know in verse 12. It said the sixth angel poured out on this bowl on the great river Euphrates, and the river was dried up, preparing the way for the kings of the east. And then they assembled, verse 16, at the place in Hebrew called Armageddon. Now these are symbols like Babylon and other places. The Euphrates River drying up, it gives us a picture of the Red Sea crossing when it was dried up and then Pharaoh’s army was destroyed.
We also see in the book of Daniel when Daniel prophesies about King Belteshazzar, his rule coming to a quick end. And what happened was the Mede army diverted the Euphrates River and they marched under the city into Babylon overnight, taking the entire place. Quick devastation represented. And a lot made, of course, in some circles about Armageddon. It’s just simply the Hebrew word for the Mount of Megiddo.
It too is symbolic. It, it likely points back to Judges 5 where we see the victory of Deborah and Barak on the plains of Megiddo. Also Zechariah 12 mentions it. It’s just simply a location where God is going to have complete victory. It’s speaking of how his forces, uh, everything that he is doing will conquer in the end.
And notice what the Lord’s says here though, it’s an interjection. Verse 15: Behold, I’m coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be exposed. It’s almost the same as what Jesus said back in Revelation chapter 3. We see Jesus saying this as well in the Gospels.
Both Peter and Paul mentioned them in their letters as well, in 1 Thessalonians 5 and 2 Peter 3. Jesus coming as a thief in the night. And the question, of course, is how can all this be happening like this and yet take us by surprise? Well, that’s been the point of understanding Revelation gives us a symbolic, symbolic picture of what’s taking place in real time in history. The world is going to continue to look like the world looks.
It’s not like in the end, as I said before, we sort of enter into an Avengers movie with all these crazy things taking place that aren’t normal. Things look like they look. Now, if you were near Hiroshima at the end of World War II, you might have thought that this was it. But if you were in Des Moines, Iowa at the very same moment, not so much.
That’s the reality of what takes place with, with God’s judgments. Jesus said in Matthew 24, he said, concerning that day and hour, nobody knows. Only the Father. And then he goes on, he says something curious: For as in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark.
They were unaware until the flood came and swept them away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. What that reminds us of is that every prediction about the end so far has been wrong. And we are expressly told not to worry about the when, and yet that’s what many people do. They worry about the when.
It’s not the when that’s important, it’s the who. It’s Jesus coming and conquering his enemies once and for all. The whole point of this heavenly vision that we see here in 15 and 16, it follows the rest of the book. God’s people are protected. And all of these events are in the hand of God.
Every time we see something bad happening, we are told that it’s the Lord who’s allowed it. Wicked angels are released, they are given, they are told. No one is acting independent of the Lord Almighty. And when God’s people are particularly experiencing persecution and hard time, this is a message of hope and encouragement. Nothing is happening that is taking God by surprise in any of this.
It’s all according to what he has mapped out.
In Revelation 16:17, the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying, ‘It is done.’ There were flashes of lightning, rumbles, peals of thunder, a great earthquake as there had never been since man was on the earth. Now, if all that sounds familiar, it should. When the Lord appeared to Moses, to Israel, at Mount Sinai after the Exodus, this is what they heard and what they saw. It’s a picture of God appearing with his people, the, the wonder and the might of God after he has delivered them. A final end is coming.
It is firmly in the hand of our God, and the full number of his people, the full number of his elect, are to be gathered for first, and then his patience and mercy will draw to a close. That’s why scripture tells us repeatedly, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion.
You see, in the end, if God refuses to punish the wicked, he is not holy and just. And for all those who want a God of love who does not condemn or judge, They have neither fully understood their own sin or have experienced real wrongs in their life.
It doesn’t take much to look through history to see the atrocities that we have committed upon one another. When you have witnessed pregnant women being cut open with bayonets, their babies being killed by laughing soldiers, you are not going to say at that moment, Let’s let bygones be bygones. See, the great problem of wrath, it has been dealt with, but it’s been dealt with by God. He’s the one who entered into our sin and misery, and he bore it himself.
The relationship that we humans destroyed with an eternal and righteous God must be repaired But how is that to be done? How do the finite and the limited fix an eternal and infinite problem?
And unlike any religion across the earth, Christianity has something entirely unique. God becomes man.
That’s why Jesus being fully man and fully God is essential to our faith. God does it all. It’s not just an appearing. God becomes one of us in order to bear the wrath of his own judgment upon himself.
As one writer said, the only way to flee from God is to flee to him. If you choose to remain in your rebellion, in the end, the Lord’s patience will draw to a close. But now, now the invitation is given. Turn to him. In the very first sermon after the resurrection, Peter said, but what God foretold by the mouth of the prophets, this is Acts 3, that the Christ would suffer.
This has been fulfilled. Repent and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. That he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for the restoring of all things, which God spoke of by the mouth of his holy prophets. What a succinct message that Peter is saying. He’s saying Jesus has paid it all, and Jesus is the only one from whom you can not only receive your forgiveness, but your refreshment.
Life in him. And there is a time and a season given for us to respond. It will draw to an end, and we see that’s what takes place here in Revelation 16. There is an end coming, but not now. Today, today is the day.
Run to Jesus. Run to him who alone can give you life, who can give you joy, who can fill you with the fullness that you were intended to have as being made in the image and likeness of God.
These, these warnings that are given, they’re not empty threats. They’re not things that are meant to, you know, scare small children into obeying. It is a picture of that final judgment that is yet to come. And if you are a part of that, you are there by your own doing, because every means has been given by God himself to bring you life through his son, that he bore and took the punishment we deserve. That is the message of hope And with that message of hope that Jesus is our Savior is the understanding that he saves us from something.
You are not allowed, dear American, to live as you want to live, free from the confines of everything around you, with no responsibilities, absolute freedom just to do whatever you want to do.
You have been made for a purpose that God has intended, that you would live in accordance to his will. And in doing so, and only in doing that, is where your life comes from. That you are freed from the selfishness, the self-indulgence that we all struggle with. That he has freed us from that, not to live independent as whatever we want, but to be truly united to him and who’s our greatest and our highest good, so that we do not end on the seventh bowl, but we have a glorious seat from heaven’s perspective of all that God has done. He will not be mocked by us.
But today, today is the day. Do not harden your heart. Run to Jesus. Flee to the one who in him alone is life and life everlasting. Pray with me.
Father Almighty, thank you for your good promises to us. And Father, we confess it’s hard at times to see to see your holiness and our sinfulness. Father, it’s hard to put that in perspective. We do pray that you would give us a greater awareness, not only, Lord, of how we have fallen short of your glory, but of the glory and the majesty of Jesus, that who’s been given to us freely. Father, open our eyes to see Open our hearts wide to embrace indeed the love that you have for us through him.
We bless you for your divine judgments. They are true and they are just and they are coming in their fullness. Father, thank you in your mercy. You have brought to us the good news of Jesus Christ. For it is in his name that we do pray.
Amen.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.