Sermon for Pilgrim Church June 2022 re Rev 15-16

Chapter 14 was both wonderful and sobering at the same time.  Those who trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord have a reward waiting for them with Jesus on Mt Zion, God’s holy dwelling place.  This is the good news.  On the other hand, those who refuse the grace of God in Christ have nothing to look forward to except eternal torment as they endure the wrath of God.  Now in chapters 15 and 16, we return to the church age and yet another set of plagues.  This time the seven plagues are poured out of bowls.

1 I saw in heaven another great and marvellous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. 2 And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God 3 and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and marvellous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. 4 Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev. 15:1-4 NIV)

The bowl plagues are the last of the judgments described by John.  They probably happen at the same time as the other plagues (the seals and the trumpets).  When these are finished the wrath of God is completed.  The nature of the verb implies that the future is indeed so certain it can be spoken of as if it has already happened.  The bowl plagues are introduced in chapter 15 and poured out in chapter 16.  Like the others, there are seven plagues, unleashed by angels.  They are judgements on the unrighteous world.

Before we see the angels pour out the plagues of God’s wrath, we see into heaven where the saints who have been martyred are worshipping God and the Lamb.  These are the ones who were victorious over the beast and its image and the number of its name.  We know how they were victorious.  “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Rev. 12:11 NIV).  Theirs is a victory which came through the irony of being conquered by the beast, who made war against them (13:7).  In other words, the saints are victorious by being martyrs, because they refused to compromise with the beast.  They did not worship him or his take his mark.  What seemed like absolute weakness was actually the path to absolute victory.

They stand next to the sea of glass.  We have already seen this sea of glass, which is in front of the throne of God (4:6).  Here the sea is mixed with fire, a reference to God’s redemptive judgements (e.g., 8:5-8).  This is no doubt a reference to Daniel 7:9-11—“As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. 10 A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. 11 Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.”  Based on this passage, the fire in the sea of glass is what ultimately destroys the beast.  The Lord Jesus has judged the beast in the fiery sea of glass.  And through their suffering, the saints have played their part in the destruction of the beast.

The martyred saints sing the song of Moses and the Lamb.  The Song of Moses was sung after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, after they came out of the oppression of Egypt (Exod 15).  They sung that song of praise because the LORD had defeated their enemy, Pharaoh.  It is a song of rescue from slavery, of God’s mighty acts of redemption on behalf of Israel.  The Song of Moses and the Lamb celebrates the redemption which the Lamb wrought in his own blood in the same vein as the exodus.  For those who trust in Christ a new exodus is coming, an exodus from the world ruled by the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, figuratively called Sodom and Egypt (11:8).  This exodus will happen soon, when the bowl plagues are complete.

5 After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple– that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law– and it was opened. 6 Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. 7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever. 8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. (Rev. 15:5-8 NIV)

Other translations say “tabernacle of testimony”.  This heavenly temple is the equivalent of the tabernacle of testimony which was with Israel in the wilderness.  “The testimony” was the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them.  They were put inside the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle (cf. Exod 25:21; 31:18; 32:15).  The Ten Commandments express God’s divine will.  There were also animal sacrifices in the tabernacle, which atoned for sin and thereby expressed God’s mercy to his people.  And yet, there was punishment for those who refused to obey God’s law.  Leviticus 26 lists punishments for those who break the covenant.  Four times in Lev 26, God says that those who do not turn to him he will punish seven times (26:18, 21, 24, 28). In Rev 15 the tabernacle in heaven is opened but the divine will is now judgement not mercy because the people of the earth have not accepted the sacrifice of his Son.  They have ignored the divine will.  Therefore, they will be punished with seven plagues in parallel to the seven plagues in Lev 26.

In the earthly tabernacle the golden bowls were used by the priests (1 Chron 28:17; 2 Chron 4:8, 22).  But here are angelic priests who serve God with bowls full of his wrath.  The word bowl in ch 15 is the same as what we saw in 5:8, in which the twenty-four elders held bowls full of incense, that is, the prayers of the saints.  Revelation 6:10 tells us that the saints pray that God will avenge their blood.  This is connected the saints sing in verses 1-4 because there is a second song of Moses found in Deut 32, which ends with “Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people” (Deut. 32:43 NIV).  Thus in Ch 16, with the bowl plagues, God avenges the blood of the saints to demonstrate his justice because he is the holy and righteous King of the Nations.

The temple in heaven was filled with smoke from the glory of God and none could enter it.  There are some OT passages in which the glory of God filled the temple.  When Solomon had dedicated the temple, the glory of God filled the temple and the priests could not remain in the temple (1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chron 5:13-14).  But only in Isa 6:4 is the temple filled with smoke.  Isaiah was terrified by what he saw, and then God announced that he would bring judgment on the unrepentant nation.  In Rev 15:8, the smoke fills the temple for the length of time that the judgments are poured out of the bowls.

Chapter 15 was the prelude to the bowls, and in chapter 16 the seven bowls of God’s wrath are finally poured out.

1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.” 2 The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. 3 The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died. 4 The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. (Rev. 16:1-4 NIV)

As with the seals and the trumpets, the first six bowls take place in the church age, and the seventh is the final judgment.  Just as with many OT passages, God pours out his wrath against those who have persecuted the people of God (Ezek 14:19; Jer 10:25; Ps 69:24; Zeph 3:8).  Many of the bowl judgments are similar to what we have already seen with the seals and trumpets.  They are similarly connected to the plagues on Egypt in Exodus.  The first bowl plague of festering sores is based the ones which broke out on the Egyptians (Exod 9:9-11).  The second bowl turns the sea to blood and kills everything in the sea.  The third results in all the rivers and streams becoming blood.  These are both based on Exod 7:17-21, in which the Nile turned to blood.  We have already discussed how these are figurative and involve some sort of suffering, probably economic.  I am therefore not going to focus on the individual plagues.

5 Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say: “You are just in these judgments, O Holy One, you who are and who were; 6 for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.” 7 And I heard the altar respond: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.” (Rev. 16:5-7 NIV)

The emphasis in these verses is that God’s judgements on the earth are just.  I think this is something which Christians often struggle with.  There is a lot of preaching about the unconditional love of God and therefore the wrath of God seems like a thing that is not real.  How can love and wrath coexist?  Calvin said, “God loves no man out(side) of Christ.”[1]  The love of God is real because he loves his one and only Son.  The wrath of God is real because our sins must be judged by a holy God, or else he is not truly holy or truly God.  The only way we can actually experience the love of God is therefore to experience it as people who are in Christ.  Those who refuse the gospel, and in doing so refuse union with Christ, can only experience the wrath of God, no matter how much God is love.  He cannot ignore their sins and he has not ignored sin.  The cross is enough to wash away all our sins.  The wrath of God is satisfied.  It is just for God to forgive people who are in Christ (1 John 1:9).  But outside of Christ the only just thing for God to do is to punish sinners.

8 The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. 10 The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in agony 11 and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done. (Rev. 16:8-11 NIV)

The heat of the sun burning people is payment for what happened to the saints because the sun beat down on them (7:16).  Fierce heat is a metaphor for God’s fierce judgement (see Ezek 22:20-22).  This one might also be an economic judgment because Deut 32:24 connects famine with burning plague “They shall be burnt with hunger and devoured with burning heat …” (KJV).  The fifth bowl is directed against the throne of the beast and consists of darkness over his kingdom.  This is another which is modelled on an Exodus plague (Exod 10:21-29).  It is interesting that the darkness in Exodus only affected the Egyptians.  The Israelites had light where they lived (Exod 10:23).  Unbelievers are in spiritual darkness, which is itself a precursor to the eternal darkness of hell.  Christians are not in the dark.  Neither of these plagues brought people to repentance.  The gospel alone can bring people out of darkness into light.

Now we come to one of the famous parts of the book of Revelation, the battle of Armageddon.

12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. 13 Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. 15 “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.” 16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. (Rev. 16:12-16 NIV).

Like all the other passages, this one is symbolic.  The locations are just as symbolic as the dragon, the beast and the frogs.

The Euphrates never naturally dried up.  For this river to dry up it would need to be miraculous.  Indeed, this event is like God drying up the Red Sea (Exod 14:21-22) for the exodus or drying up the Jordan so the people of Israel could cross into the promised land (John 3:17).  In the OT it is only God who dries up water ways (Exod 14:21-22; Isa 11:15; 44:27; 50:2; 51:10; Zech 10:11).  The question here is not who dries up the Euphrates but why.  Isaiah 11:15-16 gives us a clue.  “The LORD will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea; with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River. He will break it up into seven streams so that anyone can cross over in sandals. 16 There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from Egypt.”  The drying up of the Euphrates is a step towards bringing those who are in exile home to Israel.  Therefore, when God says he is drying up the Euphrates, we know that we are going home.  That home is free from the tyranny of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.

But Rev 16:12 says that the Euphrates is dried up to make way for the kings of the east.  At the time this book was written, this would have brought to mind the Parthians, who lived beyond the Euphrates to the east.  There were several wars between the Parthians and the Romans.  But more importantly, there is a Jewish book called 1 Enoch which says that evil angels would stir up the Parthians and the Medes and they would attack the holy land (1 Enoch 56:5-6).  If I understand this correctly, the evil spirits that look like frogs, who come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, are doing just that.  They go about doing signs to entice the kings of the earth into a final battle with God almighty.  This is simply an extension of the signs that the second beast of ch 13 performed on behalf of the first beast under the power of the dragon.  The evil spirits have the sheer arrogance to believe that the kings of the earth might be able to form an army and to eradicate the people of God.

Now, in actual fact, this is a trap set by God for the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.  The fact that God’s angel does the drying up of the river and the battle is called “the battle on the great day of God Almighty” implies that God is absolutely in control of the whole thing.  The dragon, the beast and the false prophet have let their ambition and pride and desire to be god go to their heads.  They think that they are in control of this.  The kings of the earth believe the lies of the frog spirits because they are spiritually blind.  They believe that there is a chance to win this battle.  This of course is a delusion.

We are not given the details of the battle here.  There will be more detail in the chapters to come.  But we are given a warning to persevere through this time when the devil is preparing to end the church.  “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.”  Jesus reminds the church here that he is coming like a thief.  Clearly, Jesus is not coming to steal something.  The metaphor is about the surprise, because you don’t know when a thief will break in and steal something.  Therefore, we must always be awake and clothed.  This is also a reference to the exodus.  On the night of the Passover, the Israelites had to eat while ready to leave. “This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover” (Exod. 12:11 NIV).  Metaphorically, nakedness is associated with the punishment for idol worship (Ezek 16:36; 23:29).  This means that we must be vigilant in our relationship with Jesus so that we do not get caught up in idolatry.  We must constantly live in a way that we will be unashamed to see Jesus if he returns today.  Be quick to repent of sin, be diligent in your pursuit of the things of God.

“Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”  Back to the great battle.  In Hebrew, Armageddon is Har Megiddo, meaning Mount Megiddo.  But there is no Mount Megiddo because Megiddo is a plain (2 Chron 35:22; Zech 12:11).  Instead of looking for a particular place, we should instead ask: What is the significance of Mount Megiddo?  There are a number of explanations.  Some important battles took place in Megiddo (Judges 5:19; 2 Kings 23:29).  One explanation is that it is a play on har mô‘ed, “the mountain of assembly”, as in Isa 14:13, which describes the king of Babylon.  “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon’” (Isa. 14:13 NIV).  The king of Babylon imagines himself above God but he will be brought low by the LORD God (Isa 14:18-23).  Then there is the image in Ezek 38-39 regarding the mountains of Israel, in which there will be a great battle.  The LORD will bring the enemy to the battle and singularly route them to demonstrate his holiness.  Zech 12:11 is the only place in the Bible, apart from Revelation, where Megiddo is spelled Megiddon.  This is in the middle of a chapter describing how God will defeat all the nations as they besiege Judah.  The closest mountain to Megiddo is Mt Carmel, where Elijah fought his epic battle against worshippers of Baal.  No doubt the significance of all these images put together tells us about Armageddon.  The battle of Armageddon is the final battle between God and the demonic forces.  God is clearly going to win as all these passages imply.

17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” 18 Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20 Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21 From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible. (Rev. 16:17-21 NIV)

As with the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet, the seventh bowl brings with it the final judgment.  This is sure because the voice from the temple says, “It is done!”  Lightning, thunder and earthquakes appear as they did in the previous versions of the final judgment.  I don’t want to expand on this today, but I will note that instead of repentance there is cursing of God.  It is not a good idea to wait and see what is going to happen.  Have faith now.  One day it will be too late.