Revelation 15-16 Seven Bowls of Wrath Parkdale Grace Fellowship Sunday PM, September 16, 2012 Revelation 9:12, One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things. Compare this with 11:14, The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. The three woes are the last three trumpet blasts. The first woe was the fifth trumpet, which was the plague of demonic locusts released from the bottomless pit to sting all who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads with the sting of scorpions. The second woe was the sixth trumpet, which was the four demonic angels released from their bondage at the great river Euphrates and they led a demonic army of two hundred million to slaughter a third of mankind on earth in their indiscriminate attempt to wipe out any existing offspring of Israel (Rev. 12:17). Now the third and final woe which we are looking at tonight is the seventh trumpet, which is the final onslaught of devastation on earth and it consists of a series of seven plagues of judgment known as the seven bowls of wrath which will wipe out all the wicked just as completely as Noah s flood once did. And this will be followed by the return of Jesus with all the saints to set up His Kingdom on earth for 1,000 years. Chapters 12-14 are a parenthesis that looks at some of the details of the events taking place during the seven years of Tribulation, but not necessarily in any chronological order. So we are picking up tonight where the chronological sequence of events left off in chapter eleven. Let s look back there to set the context. Rev. 11:15-19 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! 16 And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying: We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, Because You have taken Your great power and reigned. 18 The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth. 19 Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail. Although the events of the Tribulation have not yet played themselves out the seventh trumpet signals the final onslaught of judgment upon the earth and it all happens very quickly. With the sounding of the seventh trumpet we are now almost certainly in the last year of the Tribulation and possibly down to the final months or weeks as the events that now follow seem to happen in rapid succession, like dominoes falling over, as one begins to fall it triggers the next which triggers the next and so on. Therefore the hosts of the Lord in heaven begin their celebration of the Lord s triumph as the end of the Tribulation is now clearly in sight and there is no question about how it will end.
2 Notice in verse 19, the ark which contains the Lord s covenant with His chosen nation, Israel, is still intact in heaven. This is a reminder that all God s promises to Israel are not forgotten and are about to be fulfilled. Revelation 15:1-2, Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete. 2 And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. These people described here are those saints who were martyred by the beast in Revelation 13:1, 6-10. Their triumph is that they remained faithful unto death and never gave in to the blasphemous demands of the beast. These saints take up harps of God and join the 24 elders in singing praise to God. Vs. 3-4, They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! 4 Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested. Here again in verse 3 we are given a reminder that the events of the book of Revelation parallel the first exodus in which God delivered the people of Israel from Egypt and Pharaoh, which are symbols of the world and of Satan. Notice that they sang the song of Moses. What was the song of Moses? It was the song that Moses and the children of Israel sang after the Lord led them across the Red Sea and they saw the army of Pharaoh destroyed by the Lord under the crushing waves of the sea. Look at this song in Exodus 15: 2 The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father s God, and I will exalt Him... 4 Pharaoh s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea; His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. 5 The depths have covered them; They sank to the bottom like a stone. 6 Your right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power; Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed the enemy in pieces. 7 And in the greatness of Your excellence You have overthrown those who rose against You; You sent forth Your wrath; It consumed them like stubble... 9 The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; My desire shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, My hand shall destroy them. 10 You blew with Your wind, The sea covered them; They sank like lead in the 11 mighty waters. Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders? 12 You stretched out Your right hand; The earth swallowed them. 13 You in Your mercy have led forth The people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength To Your holy habitation... 16 Fear and dread will fall on them; By the greatness of Your arm They will be as still as a stone, Till Your people pass over, O Lord, Till the people pass over Whom You have purchased. 17 You will bring them in and plant them In the mountain of Your inheritance, In the place, O Lord, which You have made For Your own dwelling, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established. 18 The Lord shall reign forever and ever.
3 Just as God delivered Israel safely from Pharaoh and the Egyptians so God is now about to do the same again and deliver Israel safely from Satan and the world. Rev. 15:5-8 After these things I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. 6 And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in pure bright linen, and having their chests girded with golden bands. 7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. 8 The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. Now we will look individually at each of these plagues of God s wrath as they are one by one poured out on the earth. Revelation 16:1, Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth. The seven bowls of wrath unleashed by the seventh trumpet blast are similar in nature to the first six trumpet blasts, except instead of affecting only a third of the earth their devastation is total and complete. For example, both the first trumpet and this first bowl of wrath affect life on earth, the second affects the sea, the third the rivers and fountains of water, the fourth affects the sun, the fifth causes darkness, and the sixth affects the Euphrates River. Vs. 2, So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Just as we saw with the first four trumpet blasts all seven of these final plagues also seem to be devastations caused by the progressive advance of a comet or some other object from space coming very close to the earth. This is not in any way to take away from the very real possibility of these plagues being entirely supernatural and miraculous in nature with no natural phenomena to explain them. However, the first time that God destroyed the earth He used the natural phenomena of a catastrophic global flood. Therefore I do not think that it in any way takes away from God s sovereign involvement in the end time judgment to suggest that once again He may use a natural phenomenon to carry out His judgment. This foul, loathsome sore could be caused by a hundred and one different things, but the close parallel with Exodus 9:9-11 in which the sores were caused by ashes in the atmosphere would suggest that this could be caused by the fine dust particles from the tail of a comet entering our atmosphere. (Comets travel tail first and the closer you get to the comet the larger the debris which makes up the comets tail). It seems that the people of God who remain on earth are supernaturally protected from these final plagues and live to the end.
4 Vs. 3, Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died. This could be literal blood (after all, nothing is impossible with God). Or as we have seen before in our study of chapter 8, where I referred to Immanuel Velikovsky s description of the effects of a close encounter with a comet about 1500 BC, the first thing to happen was the reddening of the earth s surface by a fine dust of rusty pigment. In sea, lake, and river this pigment gave a bloody coloring to the water. We don t know for sure if that is what is being described here in chapter 16 but it could be. The contamination poisons the entire sea, meaning all the oceans of the world and every living sea creature died. The amount of dead fish that would wash up on shore is unimaginable. Vs. 4, Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. Now we see that not only the oceans and seas are affected by all the drinking water supply in the world is poisoned, except possibly well water (as in Exodus 7:24). Vs. 5-7, And I heard the angel of the waters saying: You are righteous, O Lord, The One who is and who was and who is to be, Because You have judged these things. 6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, And You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due. 7 And I heard another from the altar saying, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments. These verses again remind us that the Lord is completely justified in all that He is doing. He is doing nothing unfairly or excessively. Verse 6 seems to imply that again, the remnant of God is supernaturally spared from this judgment as were the Israelites living in the land of Goshen in Egypt. Vs. 8-9, Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. 9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory. It seems that either the atmosphere is damaged so that it no longer protects the earth from the intense ultraviolet radiation of the sun or, perhaps the sun itself is intensifying in strength. As we have noticed before, rather than God actively pounding the earth in the fury of His wrath, instead we are given the image of a good God withdrawing His sustaining grace that the world might taste more and more of life without the blessings of God. God still seems to be extending the opportunity to repent and be saved but they refuse, confirming that they are deserving of their judgment. (However this opportunity to repent seems not to be available to those who have the mark of the beast so there may be very few remaining on earth who would still be in a position to be able to repent). Vs. 10-11, Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. 11 They
5 blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds. This is not merely the darkness caused by smoke, cloud or an eclipse, but like the darkness that came over the Egyptians in Exodus 10:21, this seems to be a total and complete darkness that could be felt. It affected only the kingdom of the beast, which was the whole earth except for that place where God was supernaturally protecting the Jews. Whatever is causing the darkness seems to be a substance that burns the flesh perhaps a dense cloud of meteoric substance like sulphur or even salt (as at Sodom and Gomorrah) that gets into the eyes and the open sores caused by the first plague causing intense agony. But they still refuse to turn to God s outstretched arms of grace to receive forgiveness. Now as we look at the next verses it seems that the painful darkness that was afflicting the earth seems to have passed and we have a time of reprieve, but what do the wicked do with this reprieve? They mobilize the armies of the earth to come against Israel to make war against the Jews and their God at the battle of Armageddon. Vs.12-16, Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. 13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. 15 Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. 16 And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. This is just as suicidal and insane as the Exodus account of the Pharaoh and his army chasing the Israelites into the pathway of escape that God had made for Israel through the Red Sea. This time the Lord dries up not the Red Sea but the Euphrates River in order to open a way so that the kings of the east can march against Israel. Note that in the end it won t be the US that delivers Israel from her enemies but the Lord Himself will destroy the armies of the earth at this battle. Vs. 17-20, Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done! 18 And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. 19 Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. 20 Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. This is a description of how this present world order will come to an end and all the wicked upon the earth will perish, wiped out by a massive earthquake and by a pounding hailstorm of boulders as in verse 21.
6 It is done is the cry in verse 17. The final act of wrath bringing the Tribulation to an end, and with it all the wicked of the earth are destroyed. This earthquake is so severe that every island disappears and every mountain is levelled flat. The earth will look very different when this final plague has subsided. This means that the geography of the earth during the Millennial Kingdom will also be significantly different than it is today. This earthquake also levels all the cities of the earth, and the Bible especially draws attention to the great city, Babylon (Rome? Ancient Babylon?) which experiences the fierceness of God s wrath. Vs. 21, And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great. These Hailstones again as in chapter 8 seem likely to refer to not hail of ice but hail of meteorites, each one weighing 75-100 pounds. (More accurately these were boulders). But right to the very end they blaspheme God. The last man dies while shaking his fist at God s face, while I m sure a tear rolls down the cheek of God s face as He lowers His outreached arms. Copyright 2012 by Parkdale Grace Fellowship Permission: You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.